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THE 



SIN OF SLAVERY 



REMEDY; 



CONTAINING 



so"me reflections on the moral influence 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



BY ELIZUR WRIGHT, JR. 

Professor of Math, and Nal. Phil., Western Reserve College. 



Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do lo you, do ye even so to 
them : for this is the law and the prophets. — Jesus Christ. 



^ NEW- YORK: 
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 

1833. 



Entercii according to an Act of Congress, in the year one tliousand eight hundred and Ihijly-lhree, 
by Elizur Wright, Jr., in the Clerk's Office of the Court ef the United Slates, tor the 



by 

Southern District ol New-York. 



W. OsnORN AKD CO., rRlNTERS 

85 CliuihaTi street. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The American revolution was incomplete. It left one sixth part 
of the population the victims of a servitude immeasurably more de- 
basing, than that from which it delivered the rest. While this na- 
tion held up its declaration of independence — its noble bill of human 
rights, before an admiring world, in one hand ; it mortified the friends 
of humanity, by oppressing the poor and defenceless with the other. 
The progress of time has not lessened the evil. There are now held 
in involuntary and perpetual slavery, in the southern half of this re- 
public, more "than 2,000,000 of men, women, and children, guarded 
with a vigilance, which strives, and with success appalling as it is 
complete, to shut out every ray of knowledge, human and divine, 
and reduce them as nearly as possible to a level with the brutes. 
These miserable slaves are not only compelled to labor without 
choice and without hire, but they are subjected to the cruelty and 
lust of their masters to an unbounded extent. In the northern states 
there is very generally a sympathy with the slave-holders, and a 
prejudice against the slaves, which shows itself in palliating the 
crime of slave-holding, and in most unrighteously disregarding the 
rights, and vilifying the characters of the free colored men. 

At the same lime, slavery, as a system, is (in a certain sense) con- 
demned. It is confessed to be a great evil, "a moral evil," and, 
when the point is urged, a sin. The slaves, it is admitted, have 
rights — every principle of honesty, justice, and humanity, " i7i the 
abstract,^'' calls aloud that they should be made free. The word of 
God is in their favour. Indeed, there is no ground claimed by the 
abettors of slavery, on which they pretend to justify it for a mo- 
ment, but a supposed — a begged — expediency, baseless as the driven 
clouds. I say baseless, for while not a single fact has ever been pro- 
duced, going to show the danger of putting the slaves, all at once, 
under the protection of law, and employing them as free laborers, 
there have been produced, on the other side, varied and fair experi- 
ments showing, that it is altogether safe and profitable. 

In this state of things where has the American church stood? 
Has she too sympathized with the hearts of the Pharaohs? Or has 
she, in the spirit of the martyrs of former times, borne an unflinching 
testimony against this sin ? Alas ! the painful truth stares us in the 
face. She has come dg.wn from the high and firm foundation of 
scripture truth, and is professedly at work upon a floating expediency, 
doing against slavery what can be done upon the unchecked current 
of popular prejudice. Speaking through the organ of the Coloniza- 
tion Society, she has admitted all that the most determined slave- 



holder could ask, and she is doing just that, and no more, which so 
far as he understands the subject, he hails with pleasure as a safe- 
guard to his property in human bodies and souls. This is the testi- 
mony of slave-holders themselves — most competent witnesses. 

Is further evidence needed ? When the American Colonization 
Society, as a remedy for slavery, has been called in question, as well 
it might be for its tardiness, if for no other reason, there has been 
manifested a determination to hush inquiry. There has been a 
most pusillanimous shivering and shrinking from the probe. Nay, 
the few men who, in the uncompromising spirit of Christian benevo- 
lence, have urged this inquiry, have been slandered as disturbers of 
the public peace, — have been assailed with abusive epithets, not by 
slave-holders only, but by their brethren in the bosom of the church. 

A most singular spectacle is presented in this enlightened and 
Christian age ; a handful of philanthropists, dare to denounce a sys- 
tem of legalized oppression, and to charge guilt upon all who uphold 
it ; upon this, not only do the principals in crime, as might be ex- 
pected, ascribe the whole to sheer malice, but the leaders of the 
Christian church, as ought not to be expected, endorse, and give cur- 
rency to the charge, and throw the whole weight of their cold and 
crushing influence to smother in its cradle this attempt at a gospel 
reformation. 

What does all this mean ? Are Christians in these northern states 
interested in upholding slavery ? Are they unwilling to be con- 
vinced that their colored brethren are better than the slanders of 
their oppressors would make them? Are they sure, beyond a doubt, 
that the colonization scheme will relieve our country of the mighty 
evil which is crushing it? that it is the Christicui way to relieve it? 
Are the}'^ on good evidence convinced that it is not expedient to say 
to the wicked, "O wicked man, thou shalt surely die?" Must they 
have PEACE at any rate — peace, though the groans of millions should 
ascend and mingle with the muttering thunders of coming wrath ? 
Will they have it, that if a word is said against a mere experiment, to 
test the practicability of rescuing the victim by flattering the oppres- 
sor, the whole cause of Christian benevolence is attacked ? If not, 
why not welcome inquiry? A thorough investigation — a looking 
on both sides, would surely do no harm. Those defenders of truth who 
have shunned such inquiry, have always proved themselves short- 
sighted. The cause of God courts scrutiny — its advocates are thrown 
into no unseemly agitation when they are most rigorously silted. 

The subject cries aloud for more earnest consideration than it has 
yet received. More than two millions of outraged, down-trodden 
men cry out, shall we die in this sore bondage that white Christians 
may have the pleasure of attempting to shun God's wrath without 
repenting of sin? Half a million of free colored men cry out — 
America is our country — the land for which our fathers bled as well 
as yours. Why will you seek to banish us? The wrongs of the 
poor Indian cry aloud. There is no safety in league with transgres- 
sors ! The present political aspect of the South cries out, that ty- 
jraiits do not regard law ! Six hundred millions of idolaters cry oul; 



10 the American church, " Why pluckest thou the mote out of thy 
brother's eye, and behold a beam is in thine own !" 

Let us, Christian brethren, for I will not waste an appeal upon 
those who do not acknowledge the authority of the Gospel, dispas- 
sionately, and in the fear of God, look this inquiry in the face — Is 
the Colonization Society dovag what the Gospel requires to be done for 
the removal of slavery and its concomitant sins? 



CHAPTER I 



SLAVERY A SIN. 



We must first take a view of the evil to be remedied. A very 
material inquiry meets us at the outset. Is slavery, in all circum- 
stances, or at least in all the circumstances in which it exists in this 
country, a sin ? — a violation of the divine prohibition. Thou shalt 

NOT STEAL ? 

In regard to the wretch who steals a man on the coast of Africa, 
and sells him into bondage, there is no longer any doubt. The 
curses of all parties meet upon his devoted head. Neither is the 
slave-merchant exculpated, nor does he deserve to be. His guilt is 
probably still greater than that of the kidnapper. He sins against 
greater light. He buys a man, knowing him to be stolen, and sub- 
jects him to the nameless horrors of the " middle passage." The 
nations have pronounced his doom, along with that of the pirate and 
the murderer ; and this notwithstanding any palliating circumstan- 
ces. Should he plead, when taken on the high seas, that he ac- 
knowledged the reception of those slaves to be wrong, but he had 
received them, and what could he do? — should he liberate them in 
the midst of the ocean ? — he would plead in vain. 

Let us follow up this course of sin, to see, if possible, where it 
meets those modifying circumstances which take away its guilt. 
At the next step we see the stolen African standing on the shore of 
a Christian country. Within sight of Christian temples it is cried, 
"What will you bid for a man?" Is that man guiltless who bids 
and buys an immortal being, and subjects him to his own use, as he 
would a horse? Does he not thus uphold, and justify, and take 
upon his own shoulders, the sin of the slave-merchant? Nay, does 
he not stand in the relation of a principal to all the accessary agents 
who have been concerned in the wicked transaction before him? 
If the government allows, it surely does not compel him to buy. 
He liim.seK, in his own voluntary act, is the introducer of slavery; 
and his guilt loo has been pronounced by the public voice, uttered 
through the American Colonization Societ3^ That Society has 
said repeatedly that the guilt of slavery " rests not on the present 
s-lave-holder.s, but upon those who introdvced the systein." 



But let us proceed. Let us suppose, for the sake of simplicity, 
that the poor African, whom we have been contemplating', and his 
familj'-, were the only slaves in the land. He ^cas bought — it was 
the consummation of his wrongs. No matter whether his master 
be kind or cruel, in regard to the justice of the thing ; the African 
is an innocent man, and has a right every where to liberty and the 
safe government of law. What ! will a man claim the right to buy 
and use his fellow man, at the caprice of his own will, as he would 
a brute, because, forsooth, he is Jdnd and benevolent 1 Or, will he 
claim a right to the slave because, contrary to right, he paid for 
him? 

But we go forward. The poor slave submits to his hard lot. He 
bows his neck to the yoke. He renounces, along with the inde- 
pendence, all the responsibilities of a man ; and learns, for his second 
nature, to anticipate every wish of his master, of whatever kind. 
He sees his children treated as brutes, and he learns to consider him- 
self and them as belonging to an inferior race. In the meantime his 
master, having grown old in his transgression, dies. He had no 
. claim to be considered a Christian, " for if a man say that he loves 
I/' God, and hateLh his brother, he is a liar." No, in a land of Bibles 
'^ he dies amidst the terrors of unrepented sin. His children stand 
around his dying bed and see the agony of his sinking spirit as hope 
takes her returnless flight. Where now are the circumstances which 
justify the children in going forward in the same course ? With 
their father's damning guilt before them, blazing in the light of 
God's curse, can they divide among themselves that wretched family 
of slaves as an inheritance ? If they do, they may well be said to 
inherit their father's sin — they commence the business of sinning 
not like their father, upon their own resources, but with an accumu- 
lated and fearfully productive capital. Why they steal afresh, be- 
neath the gallows, that very thing for which their father paid the 
Jast penalty of the violated law ! they dare heaven and earth, be- 
tween which he was suspended, to do their worst ! ! 

The slaves increase. They furnish now both the excitement and 
the gratification to their masters' lusts. Industry, economy, and 
every household virtue, are impaired on the part of the master ; in 
their place are nurtured sloth, pride, cruelty, and ungovernable pas- 
sion. The hand of tyranny becomes so heavy that the poor, crushed 
slave can no longer bear it ; he now gives occasional but terrific 
proof that he is a man. Henceforward fear and trembling, by day 
and by night, are the jirice paid for the indulgence of arbitrary power. 
As generation after generation passes away, the curse of (lod grows 
heavier, and the thunders of his coming wrath swell to a louder tone. 
Now, I ask agam, where are the circumstances which go to justify 
slave-holding ? Are they to be found in the consequences ? — conse- 
quences fraught with blasting and mildew to the fields, and deep 
damnation to the souls of the slave-holders ? Are they to be found 
in the human law, which, we may suppose, has by this time forbid- 
den the liberation of slaves ? The very question regards the right- 
eousness of the law. Can an unrighteous law justify an unright' 



eous action 1 Does the law speak to the conscience against God, 
or does God speak to tlie conscience against the law ? With what 
face can these slave-holders, with all their Bibles, and their lucid 
facts, and their repeated warnings, and the groans of the prison- 
house sounding in their ears, lay back the entire guilt upon the in- 
troducer of slavery — the mere originator of an experiment which 
they have brought to result in a hell upon earth — and still persevere 
in the same course? With what face can a slave-holding judge, 
fed, and clothed, and charioted in splendor by the forced action of 
bought and sold human muscles, pronounce sentence of death 
upon the kidnapper who has, it may be, stolen a single African from 
his barbarous home? Can sin be multiplied into righteousness? 

Again, are the transforming circumstances to be found in the 
character of the slave-holders? Multitudes of slave-holders are said 
to be Christians — ornaments to the church of God — forward in 
every benevolent work. But in estimating their character, what 
weight has been given to their slave-holding ? Is not that one of 
the elements of their character? Would it not materially affect 
our estimate of the piety of the Apostle Paul, if we were to learn 
that he retained, till the day of his death, in the city of Tarsus, a 
patrimony of slaves, whom, so long as they remained there, he might 
not liberate, nor teach to read a syllable of his epistles, on pain of 
death? Could he have claimed sincerity for his exhortation, "Mas- 
ters, give unto servants that which is just and equal," if he kept 
men in involuntary and perpetual servitude without wages? 

"But many slave-holders are kind, and generous, and hospitable !" 
Must every tyrant of course put on the demeanor of a tiger ? Must 
every sinner's brow, at all times, be ruffled with the malice of a 
demon? AVhy, the very tiger is playful with his mates. The very 
demon knows how to flatter and caress, and put on all the attract- 
iveness of an angel. Surely, while slave-holding forms a material 
trait in the character, to justify it on the ground of character, is to 
beg the question. God has made our state of affection towards our 
fellow men, embracing the vilest and poorest, a test of our love to 
him. This lest must be applied, whomsoever it may offend, and 
whatsoever pretensions it may demolish. Moreoveij it is abundantly 
confirmed by the history of the past, that the most flagrant trans- 
gressors may show much respect to God, and be sufliciently just to 
their equals. God said to his ancient prophet, " Cry aloud, spare 
not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their trans- 
gressions, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, 
and delight to know my ways, as a nation that dicl righteousness, 
and forsook not the ordinances of their God ; they ask of me the or- 
dinances oi justice ; they take delight in approEiching to God." We 
must then look beyond apparent piety to God, to find a justification 
for unrighteousness towards man. 

Is not a justification found in the necessities of the case ? Can a 
man liberate his slaves at the south if he would ? What is there to 
hinder? Is there any command of God against it? Is public 
opinion necessity? Are human laws necessities? So thought not 



the Christian martyrs. They braved death for doctrines; would they 
have done less for practice? If slave-holding be a sin, it cannot be ne- 
cessary ; God never places his creatures under a necessity of sinning. 
It is necessary to obey God — to live is not alw^ays necessary. This, 
even in the worst possible case ; but bad as American slavery is, it 
has not yet come to this. The slave-holder may yet remove with 
his slaves and emancipate them — the sacrifice of ill-gotten wealth is 
the sole necessity which can now exist. 

Hitherto we have not come up with any of those potent, but fugi- 
tive circumstances, which can transmute an abstract sin into a " sa- 
• cred duty." Whither have they fled ? Have they betaken them- 
selves to the fields of fancy % Have they found an abiduig place, ai 
length, in the shadowy limbo of supposed consequences? So I am 
constrained to think. 

It is heard from the south, and re-echoed from the remotest north, 
that instant emancipation " would be but an act of dreamy madness" 
— the fatal match to produce a most appalling and destructive ex- 
plosion. A reformation so sudden, it is said, would be worse than 
the sin. But where are the facts? In the name of sacred verity, 
where are the facts? We must have evidence, the same in 
kind, and not less in degree, than that which convinces us that 
the sun will rise to-morrow, before we believe that God has so 
constituted his creatures, that they must continue in one sin to avoid 
another, or that there is danger in being just and merciful. In the 
entire absence of facts which prove them, and in the face of facts 
which disprove them, I must believe that the evil consequences of 
immediate emancipation, are confined to the fancies of the apologists 
of sin. 

If then there is guilt any where, it rests in full weight upon the 
present slave-holder. In vain he looks around him for those modi- 
fying circumstances which may change his crime to a misfortune. 
Out of his own mouth he is condemned. He admits the guilt of the 
kidnapper, the slave-merchant, the original purchaser — and why? 
Not simply because their transient agency was marked with cruelty, 
but because the consequence was the perpetual slavery of a race, and 
the entail upon fv fair country of a blighting curse — a consequence 
for which he, in his place, is responsible. Guilt, however, is not 
measured by the consequences of action, but by some known rule. 
To say nothing of the voice of conscience, the Word of God is plain ; 
"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" Who would put him- 
self under the arbitrary control of an individual, rather than under 
the mild and steady government of law ? Who would, himself, be 
willing to labor without wages, and have his own support, and 
that of his family, depend upon the will of any man, however good ? 
" Thou shalt not steal," says the supreme law ; but the slave-holder 
is a ferfelual thief. He steals, not "to satisfy his soul when 
hungry," but to feast on dainties, to pamper every lust. There can- 
not be made out a clearer case of violation of divine law, tl\an slave- 
holding. The very permission given to the Israelites to make ser- 
vants of the heathen who dwelt about them, is a proof against the 



slave-holder. Did God giant an express permission to his people to 
buy and use oxen 'I An express permission implies that a thing 
would be wrong without it. But the Bible contains positive 
instruction on this subject which is applicable to all, — fair exposi- 
tions of the general law in regard to this very thing. " Is not this 
the fast that 1 have chosen ? To loose the bands of wickedness, to 
undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that 
ye break every yoke ?" — Isa. Ivui. 6. " Masters, give unto your 
servants that which is just and equal ; knowing that ye also, have 
a Master in heaven." — Col. iv. 1. In the first epistle to Timothy, 
first chapter, tenth verse, the Apostle classes mai-stealers with whore- 
mongers, liars, perjured persons, and the like ; on this passage there 
stood in the standard of the Presbyterian Church, till 1818, this very 
appropriate comment : " Men-stealers among the Jews were exposed 
to capital punishment; and the Apostle Paul classes them with sin- 
ners of the first rank. Stealers of men are all those who bring off 
slaves or free men, and keep, sell, or buy them ; comprehending all 
those who are concerned in bringing any of the human race into 
slavery, or detaining them in it." 

But m 1818 this note was struck out. That is, when the Gene" 
ral Assembly of the Presbyterian Church saw that the " thieves" 
were respectable, " then, it consented with them, and became parta- 
kers with adulterers." And has God indeed placed a church in the 
world to say that his law is too severe? Do -his redeemed people 
tarry in this wilderness on their way to glory, to keep sin in counte- 
nance by sympathizing with shameless rebels? If God asks the 
transgressor, what will you do when I shall deal with you ? What 
will you answer when I shall make inquisition for blood ? Is the 
church t'o rise up and cry, this is not a religious but apolitical ques- 
tion — it will exasperate sinners, it will divide Christians, it will 
grieve the blessed spirit, it will put an end to revivals. Well might 
God say of such a church, " They draw near to me with their 
moutksr 

"But we hope better things, though we thus speak." The church, 
as a body, (I speak without respect to denominations,) has taken her 
view of slavery, not from the word of God, but from a supposed ex- 
pediency. She has considered it a political question, settled by an 
authority with which she has no concern. Moreover she has heard 
the statement of one party only ; the slave-holder has told his story, 
but the poor slave has not been heard. Let the doctrines of scripture 
be now at length preached ; let the facts, the woful, blood-stained 
facts, be spread out ; let the tale of a slave's wrongs enter the ear, 
and the church, as a body, will rise in the might of truth. Her tes- 
timony will be uttered, and heard, and feh. She will speak out, and 
trust, God for the consequences. 

Again, the guilt of slave-holding may be clearly seen from the re- 
lation It holds to acknowledged sins. I have already hinted at this ; 
but let us look it more fully in the face. Why has it come to be a 
settled point, (in the abstract, the slavery apologists would say,) that 
man is unfit to be intrusted with despotic power 1 Why, but that 

2 



10 

this very power stands m the relation of a fruitful parent to all the 
transgressions of the second table of the law ? Destroying natural 
affection, exciting anger, lust, extortion, falsehood, and cruel cove- 
tousness 1 What is the testimony of facts in regard to slavery in 
republican America? Look at the prodigality and shameless profli- 
gacy of southern youth. How many a son has been sent to the 
distant University, surrounded with whatever advantages wealth 
could procure, and after having been subjected to all that is reforma- 
tory in discipline, and stimulating in the love of praise, has returned 
to his house a ruined debauchee, made so by the vices that he carried 
from his father's roof? Did the parent's heart break? No: it was 
the heart of a slave-holder — it was too hard ! It thrust away the 
undutiful child from the scene of his first lessons in guilt, to the riper 
instruction of hoary-headcd gamblers, profligates, and duellists. 
Look again at the shameless violation of the seventh commandment. 
Read the proof in the thousands of mulattos born of black mothers 
every year — born to be treated like brutes by their own fathers ! 
Shall I enter into further details? Most easily I might, but the task 
is needless. The abomination is open, the cry has gone up to hea- 
ven, the very sun turns pale ! " Shall I not be avenged on such a 
nation as this, saith the Lord ?" 

But is there no reproving, reforming spirit among them ? Does 
not the Christian pulpit thunder forth the penalties of the insulted 
law? Is there not a'n intrepid remnant of God's elect, whose lives 
are a standing rebuke to the general corruption ? No, the pulpit is 
spell-bound. The message of God is clothed in pointless general- 
ities. The righteous are tamer than Lot in Sodom. The prophet 
dares not to take forth the precious from the vile ; I speak of the 
general fact. If there are men, and I rejoice to believe there are 
few, who dare openly to attack slavery on Bible ground, they are 
regarded as insane by their brethren. Their most celebrated philan- 
thropists, in view of all the sins of the system, think they have done 
enough when they have exposed, what every slave-holder knew well 
enough before, the pecuniary waste which attends it. They hope 
that a clear demonstration of the pecuniary unprofitableness of sla- 
very will supersede the necessity of any more direct and hazardous 
aggression. Vain hope ! Will the loss of property stop the drunk- 
ard, or the gambler, or the debauchee ? The slaves are held by the 
lust of power and the lust of pleasure. Are these passions — che- 
rished, fortified, enthroned in the heart as they are, to be weakened 
and expelled by the love of money ? 

Let those cherish such hopes who can shut out the glorious sun at 
noon-day, and illuminate themselves with rushlights. For one I 
disclaim all respect for such childish absurdity, and cowardly good 
nature. If man is not a soulless brute, the whole system of slavery, 
in all its parts, by whatsoever circumstances surrounded, and by 
whomsoever upheld, is a monstrous sin, a most comprehensive and 
damning iniquity, for which it is downright treason against God to 
offer the shadow of an apology, and for which there is no remedy 
but the uncompromising truth of the Gospel. 



11 

Such is the slavery whirh cleaves to our republio, and holds in its 
rist, defying heaven's wrath, one sixtii part of our population. Who 
shall gauge the current of its wo ? Who shall calculate the 
amount of sighs, and tears, and wailings, and of unspoken anguish, 
that have flowed through it during one hundred and fifty years ? 
Who shall sum up the bitter complaints which it has poured into the 
ear of an avenging God ? Who shall despise the coming retribu- 
tion? Let those do so, if they will, who represent slavery as a 
curse which we innocently inherit from our fathers — which we can- 
not throw off, however much we may desire to. I must be permit- 
ted to "tremble for my country," while I regard it as a crime which 
has polluted this whole nation from the lakes to the gulf, and from 
the river to the sea. While I claim the right, nay, while I avow 
the imperative obligation, thus to denounce slavery, be it understood 
that it is not on the ground of my own innocence. The conscious- 
ness of past guilt sometimes impels a man to speak the terrors of the 
law in the ear of a fellow sinner. Slavery is not the exclusive sin of 
the South. Northern ships and northern capital helped to introduce 
It ; and northern capital and northern morality throw the strongest 
shield around the system at this moment. And is this a reason why 
northern men, washing their own hands of the guilt, should not 
raise their voices against it 1 Is it not rather a reason why thej'^ 
should do it the iiiore earnestly ? If slavery has polluted the moral 
atmosphere of the nation ; if it has stupified the conscience, and 
paralized the energy, of the church of God — if it has written " hy- 
focrisy''' upon the portals of the sanctuary, and thrown doubt upon 
the very existence of love for souls, (and who will say that it has 
not?) shall those who see, and know, and feel all this, smother their 
convictions of duty ? And for what ? 

Or should such language seem too harsh, (for I would not be 
guilty of uttering truth in words which are too true,) if there is any 
apparent inconsistency in professing to love God, while we do so 
little for 2,000,000 of our fellow men, who are laboring under the 
peculiar disadvantages of domestic servitude, and while, indeed, as a . 
community, we hardly express so much sympathy with them as with 
their masters, will it not be expedient for those who can do it con- 
scientiously, to say that slavery is always wrong — or even viicked — 
as a sort of foundation for their efforts towards its removal ? I ask 
those sober men, who have sharpened their vision by looking after 
consequences and circumstances in the dim field of political expe- 
diency, was any great triumph ever won in favor of truth, by con- 
cealing truth? 



12 
C H A P T E K f I 

COLONIZATION A>S A REMEDY. 

ix needs not be said to any wakeful observer of things as they 
are, that sin always surrounds itself with obstacles to repentance- 
It lands upon a forbidden shore, burns the ship, drav/s the sword, 
throws awa^' the scabbard, and proclaims itself under a necessity of 
rushing forward. The thief is careful, as soon as may be, to trans- 
tniue the stolen goods, so as to put restoration out of the question. 
The drunkard has so Jnodified his constitution, that he tnnst^ in his 
own apprehension, persevere in his course, or, at least, not break ofi' 
suddenlj^, which amounts to exactly the same thing. The liar has 
so involved himself in a web of falsehood, that to burst away at once, 
would, in his view, be worse than to add a little more of the same sin. 
The prodigal, amidst his riotous excess, fuids moments to think of 
repentance; but the sneers of the wicked, and the mocker}' of the 
fools, whom his wasteful expenditure has drawn around him, rise as 
mighty obstacles in the way of his return. Now, of how much 
atail would it be to remove these obstacles, without doing any thing 
else to secure repentance. Do any, or all of them amount to a ne- 
cessity ? Does the wicked heart, which first broke away from duty 
of its own accord, grow weary of its course, and would it return but 
for the insuperable barriers which it has left behind it? .Are the 
most high-handed tyrants the unfortunate prisoners of circumstances, 
who would gladly avail themselves of the opportunity to escape, if 
some friendly hand without, would unbar the gate? Somethinif 
very much like this is involved in the proposition, that the American 
Colonization Society is adapted to remove the sin of slavery. That 
Society justifies slavery, on the plea of a present rieeessity ; — the ty- 
rants own plea. It finds this necessity in the laws which forbid 
manumission, or, perhaps, in the reason for such laws, namely, the 
alleged fact, that the free blacks in the slave-holding states, are more 
wretched than the slaves, and that they are dangerous as excite- 
ments to rebellion. Just what it pretends to do, and 710 more, is to 
remove this necessity, by removing the free blacks and the slaves as 
fast as they are made free. Now the question is, has this any ten- 
dency to secure the abolition, however gradual, of slavery? I an- 
swer just as much as the following proclamation would have to re- 
cover stolen property. 

TAKE NOTICE ! 

The person who stole a watch from Y. Z. is hereby informed, 
that he is considered guilty in the abstract ; but, now that he has 
stolen it, a necessity prevents the restitution, inasmuch as he is 
known to belong to a gang of thieves, who have bound themselves 
not to restore any thing, and as it would be attended with a loss of 
character — a far greater evil than the retention of the watch : — There- 
fore, I will carefully abstain from all measures which might occasion 



13 

such an unhappy developnipnt. But I am charge<l to recover the 
watch : and that the necessUy of retaining it may be removed, I pro- 
mise to ask no questions of the person who shall leave it, when it 
may suit his convenience, at my office. A. B, 

Agent for the owner. 
Have not the slave-holders themselves, for more than one hundred 
and fifty years, been making this necessity stronger ? And does 
this argue any general willingness to manumit the slaves, if the ne- 
cessity were removed? What has created and augmented this 
necessity, but the determination to retain the slaTes in bondage ? 
Do the "laws against the instruction of slaves, show any willingness 
to profit by the removal of this pretended necessiiy? 

The very reasons assigned for the laws against manumission with- 
out removal, are direct proofs of the unwillingness of the great body 
of slave-holders to manumit their slaves if they could. What is the 
cause of the extreme " wretchedness" of the free blacks at the South? 
We have it from the mouth of a slave-holder — want nf employment. 
Here is the whole secret. If a few negros, from their own indus- 
try, or the conscientiousness of their master.?, gain their freedom, the 
whole community of slave-holders turn round and trample them in 
the dust. They' refuse them employment, without which poor men 
cannot live honestly, and then complain of them for being thieves ! 
and point at them as being in worse condition than the slaves ! 
Does this show any disposition to substitute free for slave labor ? 

Again, the slave-holders fear the free blacks as incitements to ser- 
vile rebellions. Would they, if they were sincerely desirous to rid 
themselves of their slaves ? The slaves would rebel, simply to get 
their freedom. It is unsafe to keep them in bondage. Send away 
the free — make slavery more safe, and will the ma.ster be more dis- 
posed to give up the slave ? Will Pharaoh relent when the plague 
is withdrawn ? Why does he not send his slaves to Liberia ? There 
would be no danger of the free exciting insurrection among the 
slaves, if there were no slaves. 

Again . southern colonizationists cannot be serious in proposing 
the removal of the v^holc colored population, for they well enough 
know that this cannot be effected without the substitution of a class 
of white laborers, a problem evidently more difficult than the remo- 
val of the blacks, and yet their plan takes no cognizance of any re- 
placement. Indeed, in their own expressive language, they contem- 
plate nothing more than "a drain for the excessive increase" — an 
artificial antidote to nature's cure for slavery. 

There needs no further proof that the main body of slave-holders, 
who create the laws, and give tone to public sentiment, would not 
be moved a hair toicards the manumission of their slaves by the re- 
moval of the so called necessity for retaining them. This action of 
the Society, then, if it takes effect at all, must do so upon the few 
scattered individuals, too few to form a measurable minority, who 
do not assent to the laws. From these few, those must be subtract- 
ed whose consciences are thoroughly awakened, for the removal of 
this necessity from their way would be plainly a work of superero- 



14 

gation There would then remain to be acted on, a class of yiuner^:- 
who are in the condition of slightly preferring some other sin to that 
of slave-holding. Relieve them of their " burden," and one conse- 
quence will certainly follow — they will feel less personal interest in 
the laws with regard to slavery, so that the formation of a minority, 
even in the legislatures, in opposition to the laws, and in favor of 
abolition, will be effectually prevented. 

But I will weary my obliging reader no longer by seriously exa- 
mining an argument, which owes to a prevalent and wicked preju- 
dice against the Africans, its salvation from overwhelming contempt. 
Transfer the scene to the empire of Morocco. How far would it go 
towards the liberation of a large body of American slaves supposed 
to be there, to ofler to transport them, not to the land of their fathers, 
but to their own native land, for which they were pining in despair? 
Is the parallel denied 1 How can it be accounted for, if it is indeed 
a fact, that Christian slave-holders, after having broken through all 
the holy restraints of Christianity, are a more tender-hearted, sjwn- 
taneously repentant race than the JVIahommedan Moors ? 

But it has been said, the Society exerts a moral in/luencc against 
slavery. Does it, indeed 1 And where is the moral machinery 
which it has set at work ? Is it found in the authorized publications 
of the Society? We are taught by them that slavery is a great 
evil, and that there was great guili somewhere. But the bolts of its di- 
rect rebuke — how harmless ! — shorn smooth of every thing that 
could hurt the proverbial sensitiveness of a tyrant ! 

The following passages are extracted from a very elaborate " de- 
velopment of the true principles and character of the Society," 
marked No. 3, in the Appendix to the Fourteenth Annual Report. 
They embrace all the passages in that paper, in which the Society 
speaks with any distinctness on the moral character of slavery, 
along with some of the neutralizing matter which is thrown in quite 
profusely. The opinions of the founders of the Society are appealed 
to. Judge Washington had said ; 

"Should it [colonization] lead, as we may fairly hope it will, to 
the slow but gradual abolition of slavery, it will wipe from our po- 
litical institutions the only blot which stains them, and in palliation 
of which we shall not be at liberty to plead the excuse of moral ?ie- 
cessit]/,{.') until we shall have honestly exerted all the means which 
we possess for its extinction." 

Mr. Mercer had said, " Many thousand individuals in our native 
state, you well know, Mr. President, are restrained, asj'ou and 1 are, 
by the melancholy conviction that they cannot yield to the sugges- 
tions of humanity, without manifest injury to their country. The 
laws of Virginia now discourage, and very wisely, perhaps, the 
emancipation of slaves. But the very policy on which they are 
founded will afford every facility to emancipation, when the coloni- 
zation of the slave will be the consequence of his liberation." 

'Mr. Clay had said, " Let the colony once be successfully planted, 
and legislative bodies, who have been grieved at the necessity of 
passing those prohibitory laws, which, at a distance, might appear 



15 

to stain our codes, will hasten to remove the impediments to the exer- 
cise of benevolence and humanity." 

General Harper, in his letter, had said, " It tends, and may power- 
fully tend, to rid us gradually and entirely, in the United States, of 
slaves and slavery, a great moral and political evil, of increasing 
virulence and extent, from which much mischief is now felt, and 
very great calamity in future is justly apprehended. * * * * This 
great end is to be attained in no other way^ than by a plan of Uni- 
versal Colonization, founded on the consent of the slave-holders, and 
of the colonists themselves." 

From the Society's Memorial to Congress. 
" It is now reduced to be a maxim, equally approved in philosophy 
and practice, that the existence of distinct and separate castes or 
classes, forming exceptions to the general system of policy adapted 
to the community, is a» inherent vice in the composition of society, 
pregnant with baneful consequences, both moral and political, and 
demanding the utmost exertion of human energy and foresight to 
remedy or remove it." 

The same memorial speaks thus, after speaking of the " unfortu- 
nate condition of the free people of color, and the consequent 
■injury to the public welfare" — " The evil has become so apparent, 
and the necessity for a remedy so palpable, that some of the most 
considerable of the slave-holding states, have been induced to impose 
restraints upon the practice of emancipation, by annexing conditions 
which have no effect but to transfer the evil from one state to another, 
or by inducing other states to adopt countervailing regulations, and 
in the total abrogation of a right, which benevolent or conscientious 
proprietors had long enjoyed under the sanction of positive law, and 
of ancient usage." 

Mark how the abrogation of the rights of the conscientious, is pal- 
liated by the tyrant's plea — necessity! But, good reader, let us re- 
strain our indignation for the present — we may have further use 
for it. 

From the second Report, " a formal and official declaration of the 
sentiments of the Society." 

"It(the Society) has been suggested to be an invention of the 
southern proprietor, to rivet the claims of servitude upon his slaves, 
as if the circumstances which accompanied the origin of the Society, 
the character of its members, and their solemn and reiterated decla- 
rations, did not forbid so unfounded an imputation. It would not be 
more uncandid to ascribe to them a design to invade the rights of 
private property, secured by the constitution and laws of the several 
slave-holding states, and to proclaim Universal Emancipation^^ —^ 
What is this but to say, that proclaiming universal emancipation is 
invading rights? What is it but to say, that the right of property in 
man must not be questioned ? 

Those who established the Society, " had no desire or intention of 
interfering, in any way, with the rights or the interests of the pro- 
prietors of slaves." 



16 

"They considered slavery a great moral and political evil, and 
cherished the hope and belief that the successful prosecution of their 
object would offer powerfid motives, and exert a jrersuasive influence, 
in favor of voluntary emancipation." 

"It is equally plain and undeniable, that the Society, in the pro- 
secution of this work, has never interfered, or evinced even a dispo- 
sition to interfere, in any loay, with the rights of proprietors of 
slaves." 

" But it may bo said that the Society has expressed the opinion 
that slavery is a moral and political evil, and that it has regarded 
the scheme of colonization as presenting motives, and exerting a 
moral influence at the South, favorable to gradual and vohmtary 
emancipation. This is true, and it is this, beyond all question, 
which has secured to it the countenance and patronage of our most 
profound and sagacious statesmen, and given to this scheme a pecu- 
liar attractiveness and gloiy in the view of the enlightened friends 
of their country and mankind." 

" And is the Society to be held up as odious and dangerous, be- 
cause it entertains and avows the opinion thai slavery is an evil ? Is 
jiot this a truth inscribed, as it were, upon the firmament of heaven, 
and the face of the world, mid the heart of man? Would not a de- 
nial of It be a denial of the fundamental principle of all free govern- 
ment? And is the Society to be condemned for assuming as truth, 
what even the Soutkcrn Review does not hesitate unequivocally and 
repeatedly to avow, while arguing, very ingeniously, in defence of 
southern rights and southern policy ?" 

Look at this, reader : ponder it well. The Society, on its own 
confession, goes no farther in reprobating slavery, than do the advo 
cates of slavery themselves ! By demonstrating this, it has at length 
"converted" the South. Shall it any longer hold "the friends of 
their country and mankind" deluded by the vain show of such a 
moral influence as Saian is willing to exert against himself? But 
let us look once more at this famous paper. 

"A true son of Virginia has said, '/ ?)iay be jtrrmiited to declare 

that I WOULD BE A SLAVE-HOLDER TO DAY WITHOUT SCRUPLE. 

But I hold it due to candor to say, that if there be a statesman in the 
United Slates, and I believe there are two or three such, who is con- 
tent that we shall always hold them in servitude, and would advise 
us to rest contented with them, us, and our posterity, without seek- 
ing or accepting means of liberating ourselves and them, he deserves 
a heavier vengeance than the orator's bile, [the curse of God ? No.] 
the curses of America counselled to her ruin, and of outraged 
Africa. Let me not be considered harsh ; for inasmuch as the pi- 
ratical trader for human beings on the African coast, the master of 
the slave ship, is the most detestable of monsters in action — so, I must 
say, is the advocate, by cool argument, of slavery in the abstract, 
odious in thought?' " r ,• 

The two or three theoretic slave-holders must look out for this 
thunderbolt— Mfi thousands <V" practical ones are quite safe. 

Bulwhat docs all this mean? What does the Society mean by 



17 

talking about a " moral evil,'' capable of being justified by a " moral 
necessity," when " we siiall have honestly exerted all the meana 
which we possess for Us extinction?" Does it mean that we cannot 
cease to do wrong when we please? What means this extreme soli- 
citude about the rights of slave-proprietors ? What, the apologetic 
style of all this moral influence ? Is the Society made up of such 
tenderness of persuasion, such very milk of charity, that it wbuld 
do violence to its lamb-like nature, by uttering harsh rebuke, even 
where such rebuke is deserved? See how it treats the foreign slave 
traders ! — " the most detestable monsters in action /" It leaves no 
corner of the horrible, unransacked-for epithets, and similes, and thun- 
derbolts, to be poured upon their forfeited heads. Its agonts take 
care to exhibit chains wherever they go, to awaken the indignation 
of old and young against those miscreants who drive their fellow 
beings from the interior of Africa to the coast, and at the same time 
to demonstrate the triumphs of the colony in opposing the slave trade. 
But why does it not show us some of those chains that clink under the 
windows of the capitol ? Why does it not take them fresh from the 
victims of the domestic trade, and show the cruel ingenuity of the rings 
for the wrists, and ankles, and necks — brightened on the inside by rub- 
bing against the bone, and foul and black on the outside with dusty 
gore? Is it not simply because these chains cannot be spared ? Why 
then not tell us the sad story? Are there, indeed, throngs of chained 
and driven wretches in our own Christian land, who are so thoroughly 
given over to despair, that their case must not be mentioned in the ear 
of Charity? Must our sympathies and pity be borne away from the 
cries of distress that mingle around us, and stun our ears, to the 
mere accessory, trans-ocean traffic? No, no! no matter how sincere, 
the Colonization Society is too pusillanimous to deserve the high 
station which it has assumed. It is afraid to speak the whole truth. 
And if the mass of American Christians are to have any thing to do 
in setting free two millions of oppressed men, the American Coloni- 
zation Society must be given up, or it must retire into the compara- 
tive insignificance, I might say cringing sycophancy, of the object 
proposed in its constitution ; it must leave the ground of operation 
against slavery clear to a society which shall use a more aggress- 
ive moral influence. What! Is that to be dignified with the name 
of a moral influence, which abstains from a correct representation of 
its object, lesi the equanimity of those whom it would persuade should 
be disturbed? — lest passion should be excited, and the ground of hos- 
tility should be taken ? Here is a most singular phenomenon ; a so- 
ciety professing to exert a moral influence against slavery, and yet 
afraid to state facts, and when compelled to state facts, afraid to use 
language appropriate to them. A society which, when speaking of 
the most odious system of oppression, takes special care to avoid the 
words sin, crime, guilt, and speaks of it as a burden, a curse, a sore 
" ci'iZ." Is such a " moral" remedy for sin likely to eflfect a cure? 
Arc the slave-holders in reality not slave-holders, but virtuous men, 
keeping their slaves merely under that name, from necessity, till it 

3 



18 

shall be practicable lo enlarge them ?- Can this be proved of a single 
individual ? 

But the Society, instead of exerting any efficient moral influence 
HI favor of emancipation, is exerting a most pernicious influence 
against it, by the doctrines of its authorized publications. It is un- 
derstood by the slave-holders, so far as it gains their confidence, to 
admit the right of property in men, as fully as it admits any right 
whatever. It is of no avail for the secretary to say, when ques- 
tioned by northern philanthropists, that it merely admits the legal 
right. It is careful not to tell the planters so. To question the legal 
right, would be sheer ignorance or idiocy. It was the moral ques- 
tion which the ])lanters feared, and on this they required a pledge of 
silence, and suppose they have obtained beyond this a full admission. 
What right they have to the supposition, such passages as the fol- 
lowing will show. 

" It was proper again and again to repeat, that it was far from 
the indention of the Society to aftect, in any manner, the tenure by 
which a certain species of property is held. He was himself a 
slave-holder, and he considered that kind of property as inviolable, 
as any other in the country. He would resist as soon, and with as 
much firmness, encroachments upon it, as he would encroachments 
upon any other property which he held. Nor was he disposed even 
to go so far as the gentleman, (Mr. Mercer,) who had just spoken, in 
saying that he would emancipate his slaves, if the means were pro- 
vided for sending them from the country." [Speech of Henry 
Clay, one of the founders, and published by the managers in their 
first Annual Report.] 

Quotations of the same import might be multiplied without end. 
But there is no need ; if further proof is required, that these traitorous 
admissions do respect the moral right, look at the treatment received 
l)y abolitionists. They have never called in question the legal right, 
much less have they used force, or threatened it, or coimselled the 
slaves to use it. And yet they are clamorously accused of interfe- 
rence with rights, and by none more bitterly, or vehemently than the 
Amierican Colonization Society, through its accredited pubhcations. 
Take the following specimen. 

" But we have not, we do not, and we will not, interfere with this 
delicate, this important subject. There are rights to be respected, 
prejudices to be conciliated, fears lo be quelled, and safety to be ob- 
served, in all our operations. And we protest, most solemnly protest, 
against the adoption of your views, as alike destructive of the ends 

of justice, of folicy, and of humanity^ {Af Kcp. Vol. vii. 

page 101.] 

Abolitionists then, plainly, do that which the Colonization Society 
does not ; but they exert only a moral influence, they only deny the 
moral right of slavery : therefore the Society does not deny the moral 
right — yea, the moral right is the subject of its reiterated admission. 
Can any moral influence be more adverse to repentance, than thus to 
tell the sinner he has a right to sin? 

But, says the worthy secretary, " the Society calls the attention oi 



19 

ihe south, to the subject of the whole colored population," that is 
to say, it may prove the occasion of bringing them to reflection ; — 
it constitutes a good point of suggestion. So might a fawning 
hypocrite be a good point of suggestion to remind the dissolute of 
religion! Alas! what abominable mockery of sacred rights — the 
rights of the poor and defenceless ! Truly, in the language of the 
prophet, " the right of the needy do they not judge." 

The fact that the Society advocates gradual emancipation, is 
proof that it exerts no efficient influence m favor of emancipation 
at all. "But, what will you do with the facts?" some one asks. 
" Do they not prove that the Societ}^ has persuaded some slave- 
holders to give up their slaves ?" No, most surel}'- they do not ; 
and for this plain reason, the Society has used no persuasives. Its 
friends are challenged now, as they have been challenged long, in 
vain, to point out with the finger, in all the authorized and approved 
publications of the Society, a sftigle paragraph which urges a per- 
suasive to manumit slaves, at any definite time, or which condemns 
slavery as a sin, without excuse. For the sake of keeping peace 
with the slave-holders, it has brought no charge against slavery, 
which they have not always, of themselves, readily admitted. How, 
in the name of common sense, can it have persuaded any man of 
his error when, in immaculate good faith, it has never meddled with 
the question of slavery at all ? Just as well might a man take to 
himself credit for pleading the missionary cause with success, who 
should slip a contribution box into the church door, and leave it to 
the fate of catching a handful of coppers. The plain matter of 
fact is, that this is a land of Bibles. The principles of immediate 
abolition stand out on the face of all the law, and the prophets, and 
the Gospel; and in spite of the apathy of the church, and the 
silence of its ministers, they must needs make here and there a 
convert. Moreover slavery is a blighting curse, hostile to agricultu- 
ral thrift and domestic economy. So strong is the light shed from 
the condition of the free labor states, on this point, that it would be 
strange if some holders, without any movings of humanit}'-, should 
not become willing to emancipate their slaves. The Society oflfer- 
ing its services to remove the emancipated, the emancipators what- 
ever their motives, avail themselves of its aid. Among all the 
tenders of liberated slaves for the colon}'-, which are published with 
so much care in the African Repository, is there to be found a 
single note of penitence — or the most distant intimation that the 
slaves in question, owed their liberty to a conviction wrought in the 
mind of the liberator, by the Society's moral influence 1 If there is, 
let it be pointed out. It will be precious to the Society's cause. It 
will present the singular anomaly of a sinner convicted of his guilt, 
by the concealment or absence of truth. Of conversions, so called, 
there is no lack ; but they are conversions without change. A man 
supposes the Society to interfere with the " rights" of the masters, 
or to "meddle" with the delicate question of slavery; he finds him- 
self mistaken, and is said to be converted ! By making such conver- 
sions, the Society is becoming quite popular at the south. The appre- 



20 

hension of the Society's, moral influence, sensitive ns are the tyranfii', 
never amounted to a fear — it never called forth legislative rewards 
for the heads of the managers — now, it only calls forth contempt. 

But emancipation is not a new thing, got up since the special 
^^ facilities'^ afforded by the Colonization Society. In 1782, Virginia 
passed a law, authorizing the manumission of slaves, — that is, au- 
thorizing its citizens, to use one of their "inalienable" rights, and, 
we are told, on the testimony of Judge Tucker, that 10,000 slaves 
gained their freedom, in this state alone, between this j'car and 1791 
[See Holmes' Annals, vol. ii. page 342.] — Without any elaborate 
jinvestigation, for which I have not the means at hand, it may be 
concluded, with cejtainty, from the number of free blacks in the 
country, (from 3 to 400,000) that emancipations were formerl}' far 
more frequent than now. It is equally obvious, that these emanci- 
pations have been beneficial to the emancipated. .More than 70,000 
colored persons are members of the Methodist Church alone. I 
quote this fact, because it happens at the present moment, to fall un- 
der my eye. These colored members, are either bond or free ; if 
bond, they must be^t^ for freedom, or else they are not fit to die; if 
free, their freedom cannot have ruined them. Again, of the 300,000 
colored persons in the land, only a small fraction have been convicted 
under law of crime ; the law, of course, judges the majority of them 
innocent — fit for freedom. He who would discourage emancipation, 
then, on the ground of the criminality of the free, would reverse the 
maxim of the law, that " it is better to let ten guilty escape, than to 
punish one innocent man." The American Colonization Society, 
must have the credit of originating the doctrine that emancipation, 
to be proper, must be on the condition of exile. Since this noble 
and magnanimous discovery, emancipation has received a notorious 
check. If there is any thing plain in the world, it is that the Colo- 
nization Society, is exactly adapted to, and actually does, shield 
from public odium, the laws against emancipation without exile ? 
And then, with marvellous assurance, it turns round and assigns these 
very laws, as a reason why it should seek to expatriate all the 
colored people ip the land, so fast as they become free \ 

But, of the emancipations, which have taken place since the 
origin of the Colonization Society, few and far between, that Socie- 
ty has not the right to take credit. What child does not know, that 
it is because the Gospel gives a now to all its requisitions, that it 
succeeds at all ? Say to the sinner, this course of sin in which yon 
have so long indulged is an "«vi/," a great ^'- misfortune^,'' and can be 
justified on no plea but that of " necessity ;" you must therefore get rid 
of it as soon as you can " safely ;" and, think you, he will set about 
and execute a plan of gradual reformation ? If he does, other ar- 
guments than yours must have moved him. It is a truth, obvious 
as the sun at cloudless noon, that all the gradual reformation in 
practice, which has blessed the world ; has been the fruit of stern im- 
mediatism in doctrine. What, then, can the fruit of gradualism itself 
be, but everlasting procrastination ? What can better please Satan 
and his minions, than to preach under the authority and vestments 



21 

of Christian philanthropy, the gradual abolition oj sin. Wh}' ! that 
arch deceiver would blush to ask more of us ! 

On these grounds, then, I am forced to conclude, that the Coloni- 
zation Society, whatever may be its motives, or its hopes, in regard 
to slavery, either has not courage enough to state facts as they are, 
or, it has made the unwarrantable assumption that auch a statement 
is not necessary, and consequently can claim no relationship with 
that wise and effectual remedy for sin revealed in the Scriptures. 

Now, shall the Society, embodying, as it does, an overwhelming 
weight of character, justify itself by saying that it does the best the 
case will admit? — 'that it finds slavery grown into the very sub- 
stance, the " frame-work" of society, and that it would be in vain, 
iiay, childishly absurd, to hope for any success by direct aggressive 
action? So have other sins grown into the " frame-work" of society. 
So are other sins fortified by all that is redoubtable in earth and hell. 
Idolatry has formed the character, and given shape to the customs, 
of more than three fourths of the race. But those who would act 
on the part of the living God have no option. They are not to 
choose their own mode of operating against idolatry. They are 
not at liberty to propose a system of amelioration or of gradual renun- 
ciation. Nor are they at liberty to despair. They must not, on 
pain of their Master's fierce displeasure, shun to declare the full 
truth, though it may exasperate. " Is not my word like a fire, saith 
the Lord ? and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces 1 
Take forth the precious from the vile, and thou shalt be as my 
mouth" — is the command and the promise of Jehovah. 

But let us descend from a consideration of the doctrines of the 
Society, to the tendency of its actual practice. The question is 
simply this. What effect must it have upon slavery, to remove far 
off the free blacks and the slaves so fast as they become free? To 
consider this apart from the doctrines of the Society, let us suppose 
that the removal is effected by some unseen hand, some invisible 
agency, by which the subjects of it are known to be (as in reality 
they are not) transferred to comparative happiness. Is it not obvi- 
ous that this agency would remove that class of freemen who would 
most naturally sympathize with the slaves, and excite in their 
breasts a feeling adverse to the authority of their masters? If so, 
the removal would tend to allay the fears of the masters, and thus 
destroy a motive which almost always stands first in the order of 
feelings which lead to repentance and reformation. And would not 
the masters be ready on such terms to part with the " excessive in- 
crease" of their slaves, taking care to turn off for deportation, the 
most turbulent and the most idle — the dangerous and the unprofita- 
ble ? If so, not only fear would be allayed, but interest would be 
subserved. Slavery would be rendered profitable, so far as the sys- 
tem is capable of yielding profit. The natural tendency of the 
increase of population, is to advance be3'^ond the means of support. 
In regard to American slavery, this tendency will soon produce a 
redundancy of slaves, and a consequent depreciation of their value. 
To maintain their value, deportation must be resorted to. 

But is this the observed tendency of the Society's action? Heve 



22 

we must rely on testimony. It is the only evidence which the na- 
ture of the case admits. The Society itself has furnished this 
evidence in publishing the speeches of its slave-holding friends, 
delivered at its anniversaries. — [See extract from Mr. Archeis 
speech at the end of this pamphlet.] 

Whatever may be said of the motives of Mr. Archer, or of the Socie- 
ty's not being responsible for his sentiments, his tcstimon.i/, and his 
own lucid argument resting on it, must be received. And the con- 
clusion is, not that the Society desifi-ns to perpetuate slavery, but that 
nothing could be more wisely adapted to that very end, than its 
present and contemplated actions. Let any mtelligent man, without 
regard to this controversy, set himself at work to devise a plan for 
the perpetuation and security of slavery; could he, with all the wis- 
dom that was ever allied to rectitude, arrange a more effectual train 
of means, to gain his nefarious end, than just such a scheme of 
colonization to Africa ? (Not to Hayti, nor Texas, nor Canada, 
for the too near proxnnity of black freedom might be dangerous to 
slavery !) And in the execution of such a plan, could the man 
abstain from any moral interference with the claims of the masters 
more completely than the Society' has done? He must necessarily 
speak of slavery as an ei-il — must show, in stubborn arithmetic, the 
rapid and dangerous increase of the slaves — must depict the horrors 
of servile insurrection, and, indeed, must do every thing short of 
charging downright guilt upon the infatuated masters, in order to 
awaken them to a prudent regard for their own safety. If then the 
American Colonization Soeiely does not design (and I should have 
to confess my own guilt before I could charge its non-slave-holding 
members with au}^ such design) to perpetuate slavery, its friends 
must reflect, that its plan, as to all its practical features, so exactly 
comports with such a design, and, as to all its collateral results, is 
so little inconsistent with it, that its motives are fairly exposed to im- 
peachment by those who are prone to judge of the tree b}'' its fruit 
— greenish though it may be. 

Shall the Society defend itself triumphantly against this argu- 
ment, by showing the opposition it meets with from the great majori- 
ty of slave-holders ? This opposition is exactly what might be 
expected. Why do slave-holders oppose the Society ? Not, surely, 
because the action of the Society affects injuriously any of their 
claims, for this is not pretended ; but because they suppose its motive 
to be benevolent. They well know that tlie Society ought to be 
hostile to slavery, and they fear that at some time or other it may 
be — tim.ent Danaos etiam dona ferentes — they fear that the Society, 
when it sees the utter inefficiency — rather the mischievous reaction — 
of its plan, will abandon it, and resort to aggressive measures — and 
there ought to be sufficient reason for this fear. Therefore, the op- 
position of slave-holders, on account of the motive, no more proves 
(by the rule of contraries) the tendency to be good ; than the opposi- 
tion of some good men, on account of the tendency^ proves the 
motive to be bad. If good men advocate "plans of bad tendency, 
how can they fail to place themselves between two ranks of oppo- 
nents? Can they plead persecution for righteousness sake on both 



23 

sides? Manifestly unsubstantial as this defence is thus found to be, 
it must be said, in truth, that the colonizationists have rallied behind 
it as their strongest point. Veril}^, if I were contending for the 
love of it, 1 would fain spare them a rock or two from the fortifica- 
tions of abolitionism, just to save them the mortiticaliou of being ta- 
ken behind a breast-work, which proves itself too weak to stand 
alone. Glory is not to be found in routing an enemy from such a 
fort of straw. 

Again, colonization, as a remedial plan, is subject to no slight ob- 
jection, in regard to its action upon the character of those who 
apply it. I speak now, more especially, of the Colonization Socie- 
ty, as composed of non-slave-holding men. There pervades the 
whole community, a strong prejudice against the colored race. (If 
there were any doubt of this, it would only change my argument to 
the " ad homineni^ foim.) The Societj', not only acknowledges the 
existence of such a prejudice, but it pronounces it unconquerable. 
It asserts, without reserve, that this prejudice is sufficient forever to 
prevent the blacks from rising to .an equality with the whites, in 
this the native land of both. " The* Gospel never can do for them 
here," in this land of Bibles, " what it can do on a heathen shore." 
Now this could not be true, if there were left exempt from this pre- 
judice a body of men so powerful as the Colonization Society. 
Moreover, the prejudice is certainly wicked, for it counteracts the 
Gospel. Therefore the Colonization Society, in applying its remedy 
for slavery, himors its own tcicked jirejudicc. In what light is a 
remedy to be regarded, which, while it has no chance of curing 
the evil for which it was intended, absolutely poisons the person 
who administers it 1 How useless the charge, " be ye clean tha t 
bear the vessels of the Lord," if reformers may leave their own 
breasts polluted with an unholy prejudice — a palpable unwillingness 
to obey the fundamental law of Christian brotherhood? Is this "the 
best that can be done in the case?" Wo, then, to the world, in .spite 
of infinite wisdom, almighty power, and redeeming love! — The 
blood of Calvary was wasted, and hell is triumphant ! ! In view of 
this subject I must be permitted solemnly to say, that I do confess 
my own guilt, in the cold and cruel prejudice with which I have 
suttered myself, in time past, to advocate the unchristian principles 
and the mischievous plans, of the American Colonization Society. 
If there are men of pure benevolence, who have in the sincerity of 
their hearts sought to do good, and made this Society the channel 
of their liberality, let them be aware that such night-born as theirs 
can prove its genuineness only by welcoming the light that now be- 
gins to shine, and shrinking with horror from the unholy company 
with which the morning finds it unconsciously proceeding. 

I have all along taken it for granted that the motive of the Socie- 
ty is good. I have not questioned the benevolence of its officers, 
nor the sincerity of their expressed wish to remove slavery. But 1 
might have taken stronger ground. A majority of the Society, at 
its establishment, consisted of slave-holders — of slave-holders who 
took special care to have it understood that they did not renounce 



24 

the sin — thai they considered the right of the master sacrtd ! At\6, 
from year to year, they have assured their southern friends that the 
Society has not chanj^ed its character. Now the character of any 
Society — its motive — is to be judged of, so far as man can judge of 
motive, from the majority, the ruhng influence of its board of mana- 
gers. This majority has been, and is slave-holding ; it is therefore 
impossible for us to concede to them purity of motive in this thing. 
Their own practice condemns them. Are thei/ holding on, and wait- 
ing for the growth of Liberia? Then the right of a man to his liberty, 
depends upon the contingency of a foot-hold for him 4000 miles 
off! — a doctrine as damnable as it is absurd. What ! does the So- 
ciety apply to itself, as " the best the case admits," the same remedy, 
which, on the plea of their hopeless obstinacy in sin, it apphes to 
slave-holders at large ? Verily this must be a new and improved 
kind of repentance. The recipe for it might run thus. First, for- 
tify yourself in sin, so that there shall be no hope of your yielding 
to the demands of God's law ; then make your own terms — repent 
and repair to suit your own convenience, and all will be well ! We 
protest against making a combination of such men, the almoners of 
our charity to Africa, and much more, to the Africo Americans— 
our own countrymen. We hold their professions of philanthropy, 
as cheap as we do those of the Grand Turk. The saying is no less 
true than trite, that a good cause is not to blame, because some pa- 
tronise it with bad motives. Nor is it less true, that a bad causecannot 
be justified because many patronise it with good motives. No scheme 
arising out of that miscalled morality, which apologizes for slavery, 
can ekher be right of itself, or be made so by the patronage of all 
the saints on earth, or the angels in heaven. It is r^anifest from 
the condurA of the members, that the molive of the Society, in its 
operative and responsible capacity, can be nothing better than to 
escape the righteous curse of God, in some other way than by a 
direct repentance, confession, and reparation of injury — the only 
way which he has appointed. How can the Church of God with- 
hold Its protest against this palpable subversion of the first principles 
of the Gospel ? 



CHAPTER III 

EFFECT OF COLONIZATION UPON THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 

In the former chapter I have spoken of the colonization scheme 
in its relation to the crime of slave-holding. In this I propose, very 
briefly, to consider its bearing on the free people of color, the osten- 
sible objects of its charity. This is necessary, because some who 
acknowledge that the Society is worse than useless in regard to 
slavery, contend that it confers invaluable blessings upon the free 



25 

people of color. They would balance the Society's benefits against 
Its " defects," as they are pleased to call them. I cannot faithfully 
plead the cause of the poor slave, without exposing the fallacy of 
this pretension, and also of that which is maintained in regard to 
Africa. 

These United States have been boasted of as the asylum of the 
oppressed of all nations. And, in many points of view, there is not 
a more desirable retreat on the globe for the victims of poverty or 
persecution. The population is yet sparse, the soil is fruitful, the 
rivers, and forests, and mines, present infinite resources for the acqui- 
sition of wealth, the climate is salubrious, the means of education 
are widely diffused, the laws are mild and equitably administered, 
property is secure, both from private and public spoliation, the rights 
of conscience are most fully guaranteed, and most eflfcctually guard- 
ed by the jealousy of rival sects ; in short, there is no country on earth, 
where a man can reap more fruit of his own honest labor, nor where he 
can enjoy it with less interference on the part of others. Even if a 
man were to possess none of the franchises of this republic, he might 
repose under the protection of its laws with more security than he 
could feel in any other nation under the sun. It would seem, from 
the very nature of our government, that it must always be peculiar- 
ly the friend of the poor, for by all its usages and laws it frowns 
on aristocracy. It would seem, then, that there must be some very 
strong reason, when it is proposed to colonize back to the old world, 
over a thousand weary leagues of ocean, 400,000 of our fellow citi- 
zens—aye, more than 2,000,000 who " of right ought to be" so. 
Are they poor 1 Here is the place of all the world to enrich them. 
Are they ignorant ? Here is the place to enlighten them. Are they 
vicious? Here is the place to reform them. Are they unrighteous- 
ly despised ? Here is the place, if any where, to bring popular pre- 
judice into subjection to the dictates of humanity and religion. The 
reason why all these things cannot be done here, is involved in a 
single syllable — they are black. They are despised and ridiculed, 
because they are black. They are in most states denied every civil 
franchise because they are black. They are told, (by a Society em- 
bodying the benevolence of the land,) that they can never rise here, 
and must be colonized to Africa, because they are black. That is 
to say, on account of the single circumstance of dissirnilarity in. 
external appearance, which marks them as brethren of the slaves, 
the slave-holding spirit in our land holds them at a distance, refuses 
to communicate to them any of the privileges and responsibilities of 
our free society, and denies them those means of instruction which 
are requisite to bring them upon the same moral and intellectual 
level with ourselves. Now it is undeniable that the color of the 
negroes does distinguish them from the pale race of Europe. But 
the distinction, so far as divine Providence is concerned, is merely 
one of externals. It ought to stop here; The negroes are none the 
less men, nor are they the less Americans on account of their color. 
If their right to a residence here, and to all the sympathies and aids 
which their condition demands, is abridged by their blackness, then 

4 



26 

ours depends upon our whiteness — that is to saj, our boasted, in- 
alienable, indefeasible rights, lie skin-deep — they reside in the color- 
ing matter of the external integuments! — they are just as inaliena- 
ble and indefeasible as our hides, and no more. Wo to them, if our 
bare backs were once exposed to a nine-lashed slave whip ! Intole- 
rable as is thb doctrine, which leads so directly to these contemptible 
inferences, it is, nevertheless, held by a large portion of our citizens. 
There are plenty of respectable persons who will not blush to say, 
that Providence never designed black and white men to live together 
on equal terms in the same republic. And what is remarkable, the 
voice of humanity has hardly ventured to speak against such wick- 
edness. Why, one would think that the man who, in this land, 
should utter such narrow, bigotted, selfish, swinish absurdity, would 
be glad to avail himself of his own littleness, to escape the com- 
mingled hisses of scorn which such a doctrine would certainly call 
forth. But so it is not. iVIen who would have us think their worth 
lies more than skin deep, deliver this paltry nonsense with the most 
oracular gravity. And the consequence is, that the poor blacks are 
degraded and down-trodden. They are robbed and wounded, and 
thrown out to welter, and fester, and rot in the public highway — 
and the priests and levites pass by on the other side. Yes, among 
all our benevolent efforts, for the Indian upon our frontier, and the 
far-olF Hindoo — for the sailor of the ocean, and the boatman of the 
river — efforts worthy to be increased a thousand fold — we have for- 
gotten the stranger, who, having fallen among thieves in the midst 
of us, has at length iDeen left stripped and helpless, a present and urgent 
provocation to our charity. We have not engaged in any general 
and well concerted plan to raise the character of our colored popu- 
lation. Yet, in spite of our prejudice and apathy, they have gene- 
rally demeaned themselves among us, as quiet, industrious and use- 
ful citizens. With more motives to hate us, and less to submit to our 
laws, they have, beyond all question, been guilty of fewer crimes, than 
an equal number of the most ignorant of the whites. They have attach- 
ed themselves to our country, with a patriotism, as ardent as it is un- 
questionably genuine. Just now a Society comes forward, and says to 
these wronged and insulted, but patient men, There is a prejudice 
against you in this land, which can never be overcome. If you re- 
.main here, you must ever remain a distinct and degraded class. 
Even religion cannot help you here. But emigrate to the coast of 
Africa, and you may form a nation by yourselves ; there, you may , 
enjoy the rights which are denied you here ; there, you will be rid 
of that sense of inferiority, which binds you down here; there, you 
will stand forth as men, and have strong motives to exert yourselves 
in the pursuit of wealth and honor, which you can never have here. 
And the whole community of whites, with all their wisdom, and 
piety, and disinterested benevolence, so called, second the proposal ; 
and exhort the Society to go forward and aim at the removal of the 
entire black population — loiih their free conxent, to be sure — while 
not a finger is raised to help them here — not even a syllable is lisped 
against the unrighteous laws which are grinding them in the dust, 



27 

or banishing them from their homes — hunting them from state to 
state ! 

Patrons of the Colonization Society ! you form a body sufficient- 
ly powerful to wage a successful war with this popular prejudice. 
You may procure the repeal of every oppressive law, if you please ; 
you may open the door to fair competition in all the arts of life be- 
fore the colored race, and persuade them to enter it, if you please ; 
you may bring them all under the blessed influence of divine truth, 
if you please. Do that ; at least, attempt it, before you claim bene- 
volence as the motive of your colonizing scheme. Till you have 
made the attempt, whatever may be said of the African skin, it has 
never been used to conceal hypocrisy, so loathsome and putrifying 
as yours, if, haply, you yourselves are not the victims of a miserable 
delusion. It grieves me to the heart to bring charges of this kind, 
which I have reason to believe will be appropriated to themselves — 
and too justly — by many, whom, in other things, I respect and love. 
But facts are stubborn, and the principles of God's word, are un- 
bending. Even if an angel from heaven were to embark on the 
principles which the Colonization Society has avowed, in regard to 
the free blacks, he would sink. 

Let us not be told that the colored men go voluntarily to Liberia. 
There is not Jesuitism enough in the world to conceal such a lie 
from any, but the willingly blind. The plain fact is this, and every 
colored man, at least, knows it very well, the white community, un- 
der the name of " The Colonization Society," merely receive the 
volunteer emigrants — no compulsion — all fair ; but mark, the same 
community, without this 7iame, sanction the oppressive laws, utter 
the public sentiment, and point the finger of scorn, which, together, 
amount to a bitter persecution, and covifd the poor blacks to voluw 
teer. Wliat a convenient thing is a name, which can be put on and 
off at pleasure. Here is my poor neighbor, a simple, good-natured 
man, dwelling securely by me. I heartily despise him, and would 
gladly have him out of the way; but how to do it, is the thing. 
The problem may be thus solved. In every-day life, I am Mr. Pre- 
judice. Under this name, I tell lies about my neighbor, and make 
sport of him at the taverns and grog-shops ; 1 abuse and mortify him 
on all occasions ; I throw down his fences, filch away his cattle, 
and refuse redress, till his life is a burden to him. But, on the Fourth 
of July, and some other great occasions, I am Mr. Generosity. I 
go to my neighbor with ray new name, and my best Sunday suit, 
and say to him, " You know Mr. Prejudice is very powerful in 
these parts; he cannot be resisted; you had better emigrate, and if 
you will do so, I will generoushj bear the expense. If, in the sim- 
plicity of his heart, my neighbor mistakes me for a different man 
from his old enemy, my success is almost certain. If he does not, 
perseverance in this double dealing will wear out the most mulish 
pertinacity. 

That similar duplicity is justly chargeable upon the Colonization 
Society, is evident from the fact, that it not only does not condemn, 
but ithails with pleasure, those oppressive enactments which aredesign- 



28 

ed to banish the colored race.* Is the conckisiveness of iliis.argumeut 
doubted ? Take an illustration. In the recesses of yonder grated 
and gloomy pile, there is a spacious room, hung round with name- 
less furniture, into which curiosity is not permitted to pry. By the 
light of a single ta2ier, you may see the pale, half naked prisoner ; 
the monkish executioner, fiendishly busy ; the instruments of torture 
— the trickling blood — the quivering lip — the very anguish of the 
soul. But what has that man in black to do with the scene, who 
sits sedately by, and as he sees limb after limb stretched upon the 
rack, and screw after screw applied, and turned, and tightened to 
the bone, says to the executioners, " Take courage, brethren, we 
shall get the confession soon," and to the prisoner, " Only confess 
now, and you will for ever bless God for his mercy on your soul !" ? 

Say you, this' flight to the inquisition is a flight of fancy ! Then 
let it go for that; but, after all, in sober sense, how can the Societj' 
approve, or how can it even fail to condemn that prejudice and op- 
pression which render its interference necessary % Let the organs of 
the Society, at length, answer this question. Surely, it has been ask- 
ed by friends, and asked by them in vain, till, in many cases, they 
have waked up in the ranks of the Society's decided enemies. To 
put the case in the most favorable light, by the supposition that 
the sin of the legislators is, by the Society's scheme, overruled for 
good, has the Society any right to rejoice at the sin ? Does not the 
divine justice condemn the sinner, and does not the divine compas- 
sion weep over him, even while the divine wisdom brings good out 
of his evil? On the example of the Society, when we do evil from 
which good may be extracted, we have a right to calculate on the 
approbation of all those angels of mercy, at least, whose business it 
may be to bring glory to God out of the wickedness of men. 

On these grounds, it is concluded that the Society's plan is adjust- 
ed to the wicked prejudices of the community against the people of 
color, and, of course, that its action cherishes these prejudices to the 
injury of innocent men. 

But if the evils which hang around the colored American were 
irremediable here, it is still a forlorn alternative that the Society has 
to offer. Let us divest the colony of the poetry which is thrown 
over it so profusely by the advocates of the Society, in their public 
addresses, and see what remains. Let us suppose ourselves in the 
room of the emigrants, and see what inquiries would arise in our 
own minds. 

" Is not a temperate more favorable than a tropical sun to the health 
and mental development of man ? Is not the climate of Africa con- 
fessedly dangerous'? Is not the colony surrounded by jealous 
savages, always ready to shed blood, and who must be propitiated 
by a traffic in RUM ? Is not the prosperity of the colony regarded 
as extraordinary by all intelligent men ? What will its guarantee 
of protection, and its offer of civil franchises be worth, if its inci- 
pient prosperity should call to it an unmanageable accession of un- 
principled and ignorant men ? What if the Colonization Society 
«hoidd set down on the coast of Africa at once, the whole black 
+ Sec Appendix, 



29 

population, or even tlie yearly increase of it, or even the tenth part 
of that increase ? Under all the circumstances of the case, is it pro- 
bable that in my own life, or that of my children we can enjoy there 
the privileges which, in spite of prejudice and pers.ecution, we enjoy 
here ? Is there not vastly more probability of a return to truth and 
righteousness of public sentiment in this christian land, than of the 
colony's escaping the ten thousand evils to which a colony in such 
a situation is liable 1 Is not the risk of an African voyage some- 
thing ?" Let history answer. These American colonies, planted 
under far more favorable circumstances, in regard to climate and the 
character of the colonists, had for a long time to struggle against 
fearful odds. The amount of privation and suffering endured by 
the pioneers can scarcely be imagined ; it defies calculation. Even 
after the colonies had been established, and had gained strength and 
opulence, they ran a feariul chance of becoming the vassals of a 
foreign power. What if, instead of being pious, learned, enter- 
prising, the very cream of the English race, the first settlers of New- 
England had been from the lowest grade of society, driven off because 
they were a nuisance at home ? Where would have been the stern 
virtue to resist the numberless temptations that came upon them in 
their new abode ? Where the wisdom to impose upon themselves 
salutary restraints ? Where the moral courage to meet the many 
critical emergencies of their first fifty years ? Is not the success of 
these American colonies to be attributed, under God, to qualities 
moral and mental in the colonists, which, according to the Coloni- 
zation Society, are not possessed by the colonists of Liberia, nor by 
any that are likely to be added to them ? Let it not be said that 
the wisdom of the society can make up the deficiency. It may now 
guide the tottering steps of the infant colony ; but it will be quite 
another thing to direct its energies, and repress its waywardness, 
when it shall have gained the physical power without the discretion 
of manhood. Successful sc//-government is a thing which cannot 
be achieved by proxy. One of two things must take place ; either 
the colony must fall (remain ?) under trans-ocean vassalage, or it 
must be thrown completely upon its own discretion — upon thcv will 
of a people who are declared to be unfit even to be incorporated with 
an already existing and firmly established republic. 

In taking the testimony of history on this point, we must learn 
not only that great nations have arisen from small and almost hope- 
less beginnings, but we must also ascertain what proportion the cases 
of failure bear to those of success. History preserves every case of 
success of course ; but from the well known nature of the human 
mind, multitudes of failures are utterly forgotten. Yet every careful 
reader of history must have perceived that, for every successful pro- 
ject of colonization which occupies its page or its chapter, scores of 
unsuccessful ones are dismissed in a sentence. Certainly it will 
not be considered remarkable in the year 1900, to find such a para- 
graph as the following in a pretty elaborate history. 

" In the earlier part of the late century, a colony of Africo-Ame- 
r.icans, at the mouth of the St. Pauls, attracted much attention, and 



30 

prospered to the extent of gaining a large territory and numerous 
A'illages ; but owing to the excessive desire of the white Americans 
to rid themselves of the descendants of Africa, it was overpeopled 
with ill-qualified emigrants and ruined." 

I ask again, poetry apart, is there any thing in the rational pros* 
pects of Liberia to entice an intelligent and industrious colored man 
away from these enlightened shores, the home of his ancestors as 
well as ours, while a foothold is left for him ? Will he prefer the 
liberty/ of making a home and a government for himself, on a distant 
shore, in a sickly climate, to remaining here and urging yet longer 
his just claim to a home and a country already made? 

It may be more than suspected that a chill would strike the hearts 
of those men, who, in such glowing rhetoric, recommend to the blacks 
emigration, if in a moment, by the blackening of their own skins, 
or the turning of the tables, they should themselves be exposed to 
the motives which they so vehemently urge upon others. In sober 
earnest, is it not essential and unmixed cruelty, to urge upon simple 
and ignorant men, such an arduous and hazardous enterprise? The 
present boasted prosperity of the colony, may do well enough to 
grace a public parade, but it satisfies no intelligent man, of ultimate 
success — it makes no white man envious of the lot of his colored 
neighbor, (if it did, doubtless the colony would be little secure from 
white intrusion,) nor does it prove to any but the unreflecting, that 
the cause is righteous. 

It will be seen, that if these arguments have any force, they sperad 
it against the position, that Africa is a favorable place for raising the 
free people of color to refinement, intelligence, and religion — more 
favorable than this, the native land of most of them. 

That there are obstacles, and serious ones, in the way of effectual 
exertions for the colored people here, is not denied. But they are not 
physical ones. They are such as must be met in every good work. 
Let us compare them with some of those which will certainly exist 
in Liberia. 

To raise the character of a whole people, under the most favorable 
external circumstances, demands a profusely expended and long con- 
tinued moral influence, the mass of the population must be brought 
within the full bearing of the Gospel : there must be not only a 
sufficient number of preachers but teachers of every grade ; there 
must be not only suns and moons, but innumerable stars. Accord- 
ing to all past arremgements of divine Providence, the process of 
kindling up such a flood of light as is poured upon the most favored 
spots of Christendom, is very slow and painful. Now if the most 
unenlightened part of our community is to be sifted out, and to be 
insulated by heathenism, at the distance of 4000 miles, it is plain 
that we can furnish them, in consistency with the wants of the 
world, only a few living missionaries — a coal or two, a mere kindling 
spark. Whereas, here we may, if we please, open upon them at 
once, all the warmth and light of day. Is it replied, that what 
ought to be done, can be done ; that we can furnish every thousand 
•of the colonists with a living preacher of the gospel, and every 



31 

hundred with a sclioolinasLer ? How much tuoie then cau we do it 
here ! for surely a man who can be persuaded by the love of souls, 
to encounter the pestilence of an African climate, can be persuaded, 
on the same principle, to encounter the prejudices of his fellow 
Christians. Let four hundred worthy ministers, and four thousand 
schoolmasters, in this land, rise up and assert the rights of colored 
men, and devote themselves, in a gospel way, to their interests, and 
whatever prevents their elevation here, would be like the mists of 
the morning. The absurdity of making heathens* of 400,000 of our 
countrymen, for their own good, would then be seen in daylight. 

The special advantages of Africa, as a home for the free colored 
people, are claimed to be, that there he can enjoy the rights of 
citizenship, there he can have a voice in making the laws under 
which he is to live, there he will not be disheartened by a compari- 
son of himself with his superior white neighbors. Place him on the 
shores of Africa with these advantages, and 3'ou make a new man 
of him — you draw out his latent energies — you make him willing 
and able to do all that can be expected of the most enlightened and 
Christian philanthropist in his circumstances. 

If, indeed, there is inherent in man, so strong a desire to be the 
" artificer of his own fortune," as this argument implies, so strong 
that he needs only to be planted in a wilderness to occasion its full 
development ; what a surpassing pity it is, that the ignorant, the 
lazy, and the vicious — no trifling fraction of our white population — 
cannot be colonized ? Under what discouragements do they not 
labor, when they see the wealth, and power, and intelligence of their 
more industrious and virtuous neighbors ? — from which they would 
doubtless be delivered, by being set down some where in Patagonia, 
CafFraria, or Arabia Felix, with provision for a year, and plenty of 
rum and gw/ipowder. I have supposed that it must be stern necessity 
which drives men in such a case to exertion, as it seems to have 
been in Botany Bay ; but I am mistaken — and the poor of England 
are mistaken too, or they would petition their government to transport 
them to Botany Bay, rather than accept a passage as the miserable 
alternative of hanging. The intelligence, superior art and wealth 
of the higher class of the community, in this and other free coun- 
tries, it seems, tends to grind the lower class in the dust, repressing 
even the desire to rise. But place the poor alone, unrivalled, unex- 
celled, and they will at once become instinct with living ardor ! 
What new light has the wisdom of some men, employed in behalf 
of the oppressor, struck out from the obscuritj' of human nature ! ! 

Again, if the right of suffrage will work such wonders as are 
attributed to it by the colonizing scheme, it is a thousand pities that 
in this country it should be shackled and restricted. Why not 
apply its elevating virtue to the whole of our own population ? Are 
there not hundreds, nay, thousands of white men in our country to 

* The reader will perhaps recollect Knickerbocker's story of the honest Dutch- 
man, who, for the sake of overleaping a small liUl, went back three miles to get a 
start ; but when he arrived at the foot of the hill, was obliged to lie down and rest 
before i)erforming his wonderful feat. The story finds its moral here ! 



32 

wliom the privilege of suffrage is not allowed ? And do not many 
of these men need elevating 1 Here is the motive by which they 
may be elevated. If the right of suffrage be so powerful a stimu- 
lant in a feeble, dependent, hand-to-mouth multitude of ignorant 
and ill-assorted men, thrown together by no agency of their own, 
on a barbarous coast, what would it not be in a long established, well 
regulated, opulent and Christian republic ? Yes, yes, on the ground 
of this argument for colonization, any friend of humanity, who can 
see deeper and feel deeper than the skin, might even venture to ask, 
why this elevating power is not applied to colored men here ? Sheer 
hypocrisy prevents it, says Truth. The men who bring this argu- 
ment, are the very men who do not plead for the complete enfran- 
chisement of the blacks here ; which clearly shows that their pre- 
tensions in this matter, are either so meanly subservient or so grossly 
inconsistent, that they are unworthy of a serious refutation. As 
the very best that can be said of them, they have so completely 
parted with common sense, that they do remarkably illustrate why 
the Bible calls the wicked fools. 

Here, then, 1 must reiterate the charge, that the Colonization So- 
ciety, by holding out an unsubstantial, fatal lure, is seeking to 
banish from their country 4OO,U0O of our own native born fellow 
citizens, nay, to banish 2,400,000. 

But there remains another charge; The Colonization Society 
basely slanders the whole body of the free people of. color. It 
makes them a degraded, vicious, incurably besotted class, who not 
only never can rise, but never can be raised, and are properly to be 
got rid of as a nuisance. How would the welkin have rung with 
peals of indignation if such a charge had been uttered against any 
class of our white fellow citizens? Even if it had been true, how 
would it have been represented as abusive and unchristian ? But 
no candid man needs to be told that against the free men of color 
the charge is false, and calumnious as it is cruel. There is, as might 
be expected of necessarily poor and ignorant men, goaded by preju- 
dice and persecution, much vice among them. They do not belong 
to that class of refined and innocent victims of oppression, which 
abound in novels, it iTiay be ; neither is their depravity sufficiently 
dignified to suit the lovers of romance ; but it is an ill-looking, every- 
day, matter-of-fact thing. They need the same moral discipline 
which is needed by any other portion of the community. But 
amidst all their faults there are redeeming qualities, which must put 
to shame every white man who has not lost the power to blush. 
No field in the world is richer in instances of stern moral courage, 
unbending decision of character, exact integrity, unassailable 
fidelity, self-sacrificing patriotism, ardent thirst for knowledge, disin- 
terested benevolence, and unfeigned piety, than the history of our 
free colored brethren. Multitudes of them have risen spontaneously 
from the lowest depths of slavery, have bought their freedon:i by years 
of toil, have risen amidst unmeasurable reproach and obloquy to an 
eminence that has extorted the admiration of their oppressors. 
Others have braved dccith for liberty, have been hunted from moun- 



33 

tain to mountain, have been ferreted from city to city, by monsters 
attracted by the price set upon their heads, till at length they have 
foiled all the advantages of their pursuers, and have planted them- 
selves as quiet and industrious citizens of our northern republics. 
Some of them have borne away the palm of genius, by their own 
unaided endeavors. As a class, they have moved steadily forward, 
till they have consummated a union, whose voice, by its dignity and 
manful energy, has arrested the attention, and called forth the ad- 
miration of the wise and good in both hemispheres. 

The defence, however, does not rest here ; the calumniatgr may 
be convicted out of his own mouth. No sooner has he taught the 
community of white men to regard their black brethren as an ex- 
crescence, a gangrene, an intolerable nuisance, to be removed at what- 
ever expense, than, in marvellous consistency, he turns around and 
urges their removal for the good of Africa. Every one of them, he 
says, "will become a missionary to Africa, carrying with him cre- 
dentials in the holy cause of civilization, religion, and free institu- 
tions." * With the most dignified composure, he assures us that the 
same voyage which relieves our shores of a curse, lands an equal 
blessing upon the shores of Africa. Thus does the Society not 
only " kill two birds with one stone," but it throws one and the 
same stone, at the same time, in opposite directions. It has made 
the important discovery, that ignorance and vice, which bid defiance 
to the concentrated force of Christianity, at home, when thrown 
upon a heathen shore, are the very leaven to produce Christianity. 
That is to say, Christianity cannot convert and elevate 400,000 free 
blacks, in the most favorable circumstances, much less, then, can it 
convert Africa : but these 400,000 unconverted blacks can do it ; 
hence, they can do more for the cause of Christ, than Chris- 
tianity itself. Yes, poor Christianity has come to be best propa- 
gated by its vilest enemies. Most exquisite absurdity ! ! 

The Society is presented with this alternative — either to confess 
itself a calumniator, or give up its missionary pretensions. From 
this dilemma, there is no escape, except by the childish supposition, 
that some marvellous change takes place during the voyage to Li- 
beria. The probability of a great change for the better, those will 
easily appreciate, who have themselves witnessed the effects of 
emigration. Had the absurd suppositions of the Society any ex- 
istence, in fact, the world might probably be converted, not by the 
sacrifice of our comforts, but of our curses. 

Again, ■ the Society presents the colony, as it now stands, as a 
proof of what may be done (as soon as funds and the consent of 
the blacks themselves may be somehow obtained) in regard tj all 
the free blacks of the land. But it is said that the morals of the 
Colonj'-, are better than those of the United States. Therefore, 
either the Society deals falsely in arguing from the success of Li- 
beria, to what may be done for all the free blacks, or it must allow 
that the morals of the colored people here, are as good as those of 

♦ Speech of Henry Clay. 
5 



34 

their oppressors, or, in other words, that it is a cakimniator. That 
is to say, if it has told the truth about Liberia, it has either con- 
victed itself of a cakimny against the free blaclcs here, or of a false- 
hood, when it has pretended that their emigration could benefit 
Africa. From this net of its own making, the Society can come 
off clear only by showing that the Colonists, now settled in Libe- 
ria, were an ignorant, vicious, degraded set while here ; that they 
are now eminently the reverse, and that they became so in the very 
act of setting foot on the coast of Africa. 

It is hardly necessary to add, thai blushes and confessions could 
hardly make it plainer, than do these tortuosities of the Society, 
thai it has been for sixteen years pouring out calumny and defama- 
tion against our brethren and countrymen, the free men of color. 

And who are the objects of all this abuse ? The strong, the 
proud, the haughty, the tyrannical ? No : they are the weak, the 
humble, the defenceless. Magnanimous work indeed for the edu- 
cated, the refined, the pious, the dignitaries of every profession, to 
scour the country for the sake of reviling the poor in public ha- 
rangues ! Such a work costs no sacrifice except that of conscience ; 
(one which seems to have been made in the lump by the Coloniza- 
tion Society,) and, to drop irony, it is as despicable as it is cheap. 

Virulent and persevering as this persecution has been, it is re- 
freshing to every lover of his race, to know that it has failed of its 
object. With the exception of a few of the goaded and abused 
colored men of the South, who, as an English writer well remarks, 
"are glad to jump out ot the fryingpan into the fire" — out of civil 
and religious persecution into Liberia — they have promptly nega- 
tived every offer to remove them ; have attached themselves more 
closely to the country, and have been stimulated to the most lauda- 
ble endeavors, to educate their children and elevate themselves. 
The friends of the free people of color are not afraid to compare 
the proceedings of the general convention of that people, in Phila- 
delphia, v/ith those of any other body of men whatever. Com- 
pare them, candid reader, with the proceedings of any of the annual 
meetings of the American Colonization Society, and say if, laying 
aside all evidence but the authorized minutes, you would not judge 
the latter to be a combination of unprincipled demagogues, seeking 
under the guise of benevolence, to remove from our land a respecta- 
ble class of industrious and peaceable citizens, who, in their united 
capacity, defended themselves with a firm dignity, and exposed the 
nsidious attacks of their enemies, in the fearless composure of per- 
secuted honesty ?- 



35 
CHAPTER IV. 

EFFECT ON AFRICA. 

I COME now to the Society's last resort — its citadel when hotly 
pursued by northern philanthropists. It is almost certain that the 
non-slave-holding friends of the Society are, to a man, painfully 
conscious of a perpetual obscurity, like a Newfoundland fog, hang- 
ing around the point of the Society's tendency to remove slavery. 
Not even the figures, that are so often pompously paraded to show 
what may be done, can clear it away. Both the how, and the lohen, 
are beyond the reach of figures. The consummation so devoutly to 
be wished for, is a semper fugiens, to the Colonization Society, more 
evanescent than the silver cups at the end of the rainbow, and which 
leaves the silly arithmetician out of breath, and bewildered in his own 
pursuit. This, evidently, is not the aspect of the Society on which 
its friends like best to dwell. Nor is it less sure that they feel con- 
siderable embarrassment, in regard to its action on the free colored 
people. Especially is this true, if they happen to be well acquainted 
with colored men, and to know, as in this case they must, that to 
persuade them to emigrate, every benevolent regard, and every 
neighborly kindness, must be withholden, except on the express con- 
dition of going to Liberia. Men, who have a drop of the milk of 
human kindness in them, cannot but have some misgivings when 
they act with a Society, which, to secure its object, is obliged to ap- 
plaud, or at least not to disapprove, the most iniquitous legal enact 
ments. This again is a point which they are willing enough to 
have passed by. But, after all, the plan is adapted to benefit Africa. 

1st. It will introduce Christianity there. Even here, much ol||^uri- 
ty beclouds the how? The Society does not very sedulously ex- 
plain the precise adaptation of the means to the end ; it does not 
show hoio the spark at Liberia, so singularly feeble, is to kindle to 
a blaze, a mass so singularly incombustible as the population of 
Africa. The material proposition that it will, is taken for granted. 
And as Africa and its geography have scarcely a place among our 
matters of fact, imagination takes the liberty to portray, in her own 
colors, the triumphs of the Gospel as it spreads from tribe to tribe, 
carrying the blessings of civilization in its train. Errant fancy 
threads the Niger, traverses the desert, climbs the mountains of the 
moon, and every where ; her enchanted eyes rest on cities, villages, 
and rural dwellings, people/' by regenerated, enlightened and Chris- 
tian men— ?nd all th's, from the Societj'' ^ colony. He who would 
spoil such a aream, by obtruding upon it the unwelcome inquiries of 
common sense, is very gravely called upon to lay his hand upon his 
heart, iuid ansv/er to his Maker for such gratuitous mischief! 

Nevertheless, some plain inquiries must be urged, in behalf of 
2,000,000 of slaves, whose rights are kept in abeyance, and in be- 
half of 400,000 freemen, who are being sacrificed in detail for the 



36 

sake of this mighty experiment on Africa. The equivocal charac- 
ter of the '■'■Missionary^ colonists has already been spoken of But 
supposing their character all that could be wished, is a com- 
mercial colony adapted to christianize a savage people? If there 
is any example of this kind on record, there are advocates of the 
Society sufficiently profound in history to lay the finger npon it. 
Why have they not done so ? The familiar examples with which 
we are acquainted, certainly look in a different direction. What 
colonies in the universe should produce this result, if not those of 
New-England ? Some of them received their charters for the ex- 
press purpose of benefittmg the aborigines. Many of their ministers 
were devoted missionaries, who labored and prayed without ceasing 
for the conversion of the Indians. Brit, as we well know, their 
efforts were thwarted, and almost nullified, by the proximity of the 
white settlements. The superior skill in trade, of the foreigners, 
awakened the jealousy of the natives. Wars were the consequence, 
of which we know the disastrous res'ilt. To be brief, the history 
of Christianity most clearly teaches us, that no colony can benefit 
ignorant and savage men, till it is itself so thoroughly christianized, 
in all its members, as not only to be honest, but to be so " in the sight 
of all men," and to abstain totally from Avar and ardent spirits. 
This is not true in regard to the colony at Liberia, nor can it be 
expected to be, on the plan of the Society. We are told of a brisk 
and successful trade with the natives in trinkets, powder and shot, 
and RUM, and that many of the colonists ate growing rich by it 
No matter whether this is authorized by the Society or not, we are 
told that it cannot be frevented — not even thesellingof rum. Wluit 
would become of any Christian mission, and what of the heathen 
around it, if its members could not be prevented from selling^ rw.«j ? — 
if they enriched themselves by dealing in trinkets ? — if they not 
only ibid the materials of war, but had their mission house fortified 
with deadly ordnance? What would become of their claim to bene- 
volence? Why, such a missio)i would be a scandal, a shame, a 
curse — -the very worst obstacle that the devil could throw in the way 
of the Gospel chariot. The blessed Saviour, who came into this 
world, "not to do his own will," is impiously outraged by any 
such proceedings in his name. Would he, think you. Christian rea- 
der, have stood in that fort, where the first colonist repelled a host 
of savage assailants, adjusting, loading, aiming, and applying the 
match to that artillery which spent its deadly force on compact 
masses of living human fiesh? No, he never would have built a 
fort. It was his practice, and that of his followers, to gain the con- 
fidence of men by showing confidence in them. He never asked 
for his disciples the protection of hell's engines of murder. When- 
ever they have asked it, he has withdrawn from them both his sword 
and his shield, and they have ceased to be victorious in his war- 
fare. 

Alas! poor Africa! Was it not enough that Christian robbers 
should chain and drive away thy strong men and women, murder- 
ing the grandsire, the mother, and the suckling together, and leav- 



37 

ing the ashes ol" their dwelling, reeking in their innoronl blood? — • 
Was it not enough that they should utter to thy parched lips the 
scalding beverage of devils, turning thy peaceful villages into scenes 
of murderous riot, and poisoning thy domestic bliss with universal 
suspicion and fear of treachery? Must Christian missionaries, in 
their first attempt to redress thy wrongs, bring with them the same 
blood-stained weapons — the same infernal drink? But 1 cannot pro- 
ceed — my heart is pained — that first African blood — nay, fresher 
blood than that,is crying, like Abel's, in the ears of eternal justice. 
The colony was stained with blood in its infancy — shall it proceed ? 
Shall it grow up a murderer? No, says the voice of heaven-born 
charity, let it die a thousand deaths, rather than shed another drop 
of fraternal blood ! ! Let it throw away its carnal weapons, and 
humble itself before God, and bare its bosom, and extend its naked 
hand in fraternal afi'ection, in the spirit of evangelic martyrdom, or 
else let American Christians renounce the pretence of christianizing 
Africa by its means. The very reason assigned by the Society, why 
the colored men cannot be elevated and evangelized here, is, that 
there exists an invincible antipathy, prejudice, and hatred, against 
them in the breasts of the whites — or, in other words, that the 
whites are so wickedly proud, and the blacks are sb wickedly degra- 
ded in consequence of it, that the Gospel cannot act. And what is 
the tendency of that gainful traffic in poison, of that fort on the 
cape, with its powder and balls, and guns, and martial array, if it 
be not to raise up the same hostile prejudice there? Will a mere 
similarity of color neutralize this adverse influence ? Will a few 
feeble rays of instruction, addressed to those savages, make a deeper 
impression upon their minds, than the bullets shot through the living 
flesh ? There is, confessedly, in our own Christian country, a pesti- 
lence, antagonist to the life of the Gospel. Along with the Gospel,shall 
we inoculate the nations with this pestilence, which we may be 
sure, from their deep depravity, and a hundred experiments, will 
grow to the entire exclusion of the living principle ? Why, in sober 
earnest, the colony is the most serious hindrance of the Gospel on 
the African coast. If the Christian church wishes to blot out the 
hopes of the heathen, let it carry every where the worldly princi- 
ples of nominal Christianity along with its " worldly gear." 

2d. The Colonization Society is claimed to benefit Africa, by its 
tendency to destroy the slave trade. The first ground of this claim, 
is its alleged tendency to christianize Africa, which I have already 
considered. Secondly, the Colony does now defend a number of 
miles of coast from the slave traders, from which the traffic is en- 
tirely excluded ; (the matter is far enough from being proved,) hence, 
it is argued, that if such colonies were planted all around Africa, 
the trade would be broken up, finished, annihilated. What simpli- 
city ! It reminds me of the scenes of childhood, when a number of 
ingenious babies of us, formed the design of damming a certain small 
brook, with a view to catch the fish, as the water below the dam for- 
sook them. It was manifest that a single sod thrown in stopped the 
water in that place, so we calculated on the certainty of stopping 



38 

the whole with a sufficient number of sods. But how sadly were 
we disappointed when, a fine dam being built, before the water had 
time to recede beneath, that from above came pouring over with 
fresh impetuosity. The disappointment taught us that damming a 
stream is not the way to dry it up. A little of the Infant School 
philosophy, which was then less rife than now-a-days, would have 
taught us that water runs by virtue of an attraction, and that, if we 
could have found the means to destroy this attraction, we should not 
have been troubled with the water from above. In regard to that 
wide stream of human wo, the slave traffic, in which the Coloniza- 
tion Society, in the simplicity of perpetual babyhood, is always 
dabbling, the attraction may be removed. It lies within the reach 
of human agency. It lies in the price paid for human cattle ! 
Abolish slavery ; make it penal to hold human beings as property, 
and you stop the traffic henceforth and for ever. It is the market 
which calls the supplies. What ! do we hold slaves at home — bu}' 
and sell them as things, drive them in herds from state to state, work 
and feed and lodge them as beasts, and yet wonder that they are 
brought to us across the ocean for sale ? What boots it, to brandish 
the sword of justice in one hand, while we hold out the golden bribe 
in the other ? As there must be perpetual fluctuations in the de- 
mand for labor, wherever labor is supplied by slaveiy, there must be 
a slave trade. If it could be banished from the ocean it would 
flourish the more at home. It would separate husbands and wives, 
parents and children, and open every where fresh sluices of unut- 
terable wo. Nay, in one horrible particular, the domestic outdoes 
the foreign traffic : we do not learn that it is common for African 
fathers to sell their own children, but it is quite common for a plant- 
er, in one of our southern stales to sell his own offspring — even after 
the most solemn promises to the sable mother that such a thing 
should never be done ! ! 

It may even be questioned whether this miserably inconsistent op- 
position of the foreign traffic, has not increased the evil. In spite 
of the cruisers, the market has been svpjilied. This is all that 
would Imve been done at any rate. But to effect this the slaves 
have been the more cruelly "packed" and hundreds have been thrown 
overboard in chains, when the slaver was pressed with pursuit. I 
merely suggest this consideration to those who wish us to treat the 
subject of slavery with great delicacy — to touch it with caution, if 
at all, while they are making pictures of slave ships, stowed to the 
full, and rattling African slave chains from every pulpit. Consis- 
tency is a jewel. Let it not be understood that I oppose the call- 
ing of the foreign traffic piracy, or the measures taken to drive this 
piracy from the ocean. This ought ye to have done, but by no 
means to have left the other undone. If the trader is a pirate, the 
lolder is a felon, and should be called so. 

I was just closing this chapter, when I heard some one at^k, (it 
eemed to be a female voice,) but do we not restore to Africa her 
ong lost children ? No, kind madam, &. figure of speech has de- 
'ived us here. Africa, when stripped of its personification, is mere 



39 

inanimate rock and soil — and some of that very sandy — which hag 
never had any right of property in the men who have inhabited it, 
much less in their descendants born on another continent. Accord- 
ing to the constitution of the United States, every man belongs to 
himself. Every man owns himself as much as he owns his horse 
or his watch. If a thief should take your watch and retain it a 
long time, would you not think it a strange restitution, if he refused 
to restore it to you except on the spot where your grandmother was 
born; perhaps a thousand miles oil'? Again, if we must hold to 
the figure, and restore to Africa her children, why not to Europe, 
hers 1 Would they be any more welcome in one case than in the 
other? Would an armed colony of Europe's children, on the coast 
of France, or England, planted there expressly to introduce a new 
order of things, excite more jealousy, than will an armed colony of 
Africa's children, on the slave coast? And more, if Africa is to 
have her children, and Europe hers, what is to become of America's 
children ? 

This subject is capable of a much clearer development ; but I 
conclude, on the view we have taken, that the benefit to Africa is 
exactly what might be expected of a robber holding to his 

ROBBERY. 



CHAPTER V . 

IMMEDIATE ABOLITION. 

Since I have shown so little respect for a scheme considered by 
the bulk of the Christian community, as the last resort, and the only 
hope against the system of slavery, it may be expected that 1 
should point out something better. The expectation is reasonable 
and shall not be disappointed. Under the government of God, as 
exhibited in this world, there is bitt one remedy for sin, and that is 
available only by a repentance, evidenced by reformation. There is 
no such thing as holding on to sin with safety. It is not only to 
be renounced, but the very occasions of it are to be avoided at what- 
ever sacrifice. If thy right hand cause thee to oflTend, cut it off" — if 
thy right eye, pluck it out. The dearest human relationships are 
to be broken through when they interfere with the relation which 
a man bears to God, and through him to his rational creatures. 
This being the case, we might naturally expect that the entire agency 
which God has provided to reclaim the world should be adapted to "^xo- 
AwcG immediate repentance. It certainly is so, if we take the testimony of 
the Bible. When the Apostle of the Gentiles attacked idolatry, he said, 
" The times of this ignorance God winked at, (that is, used no special 
agency to prevent it,) but now commandeth all men every where to 



40 

repent. The living ministry, instituted by the author of Christianity, 
and propagated from age to age, was designed to reform and save 
the world by preaching repentance — immediate, thorough repent- 
ance. When it gives up this message, whatever other means it 
may use, it does anything but reclaim men from sin. Throughout 
all the recorded messages of God to men, he expresses the utmost 
abhorrence of sin — there is no compassionate promise even, which 
is not based upon the condition that sin be forsaken as an abomina- 
ble evil. The entire and total wickedness of men, is the subject of 
the first paragraph in every exposition of Gospel grace. Those men 
who are so excessively cautious not to disturb prejudice, who would 
remove sin while the wicked are asleep, stealing around the bed and 
effecting a reformation beforehand, so that the sinner may repent at 
his leisure without hindrance when he wakes, derive their authority 
elsewhere than from the word of God, as indeed they must derive 
their hope of success elsewhere than from the natural history of 
man. The doctrine of the immediate abolition of slavery asks no 
better authority than is offered by scripture. It is in perfect har- 
mony with the letter and spirit of God's word. 

The doctrine may be thus briefly stated. It is the duty of the 
holders of slaves immediately to restore to them their liberty, and to 
extend to them the full protection of law, as well as its control. It 
is their duty equitably to restore to them those profits of their labor, 
which have been wickedly wrested away, especially by giving them 
that moral and mental instruciion — that education, which alone can 
render any considerable accumulation of property a blessing. It is 
their duty to employ them as voluntary laborers, on equitable wages. 
Also, it is the duty of all men to proclaim this doctrine — to urge 
upon slave-holders immediate eviancipation^ so long as there is a 
slave — to agitate the consciences of tyrants, so long as there is a 
tyrant on the globe. 

Though this doctrine does not depend, in regard to the slave- 
holder, upon the safety of immediate emancipation, nor, in regard to 
the non-slave-holder, on the prospect of accomplishing any abolition 
at all, but upon the commands of God, yet I shall attempt to estab- 
lish it upon those lower grounds. I am willing to rest the cause on 
the truth of the following propositions. 

1. The instant abolition of the whole slave system is safe, and 
the substitution of a free labor sj'stem is safe, practicable and pro- 
fitable. 

2. The firm expression of an enlightened public opinion, on the 
part of non-slave-holders, in favor of instant abolition, is an effectual, 
and the only effectual means of securing abolition in any time what- 
soever. 

1. Immediate abolition is safe. 

Were I speaking to a Christian public, who believed half they 
professed, I would not insult them by a labored argument on this 
point. It would be enough to have shown that emancipation is the 
duty of slave-holders, to arouse these Christians to plead the cause 



41 

of the oppressed, even at the peril of dungeons and gibbets. But 
the Christians of this age, must have not only a " thus saith the 
Lord," but a guarantee — safe as a real estate mortgage — that the 
performance of the duty shall not injuriously affect certain tempo- 
ralities, which, taken together, little and great, are supposed to make 
up the public weal. No matter how many millions writhe in the 
last distress, the public safety is the paramount claim, the supreme 
law. And of this public safety — not God, but the public, is to be 
judge. With a thorough going Christian of the apostolic school, 
whatever is right, is of course ezpedietit ; but with the modern bap- 
tized "gnat strainer and camel swallower," nothing is right, which 
cannot be wire-drawn through his own apprehension of expediency. 
For the special benefit of such, I proceed lo this argument. 

The immediate abolition of slavery is safe, because, without giv- 
ing to the slaves any motives to injure their masters, it would take 
away from them the very strong ones which they now have. Why 
does the white mother quake at the rustling of h, leaf? Why, but 
that she is conscious that there are those around her, who have been 
deeply enough provoked to imbrue their hands in her blood, and in 
that of the tender infant at her breast ? And this, while all is crin- 
ging servility around her — while every want is anticipated, and the 
most menial services are perfonned with apparent delight. But well 
she knows that it is a counterfeited delight. Well enough she knows, 
that were she subjected to the same degradation to which she sub- 
jects others, vengeance would fire her heart, and seek the first occa- 
sion to do its fellest deed. All the instincts of animal nature cry 
out, that oppression is dangerous. The natural history of man cries 
out, that there is a point, beyond which endurance would be miracu- 
lous. 

But the slaves are now, not only under the motives common to 
humanity, to throw off their 3'Oke, but they are urged on by the 
boasts and taunts of their masters. They must either yield up every 
pretension to manhood, and contentedly think themselves brutes, or 
they must apply to themselves, and be aroused to action, by those 
panegyrics on liberty, and that proud contempt of slavery, which 
meet them on every side. No matter how many laws may be thrown 
around the slave to keep out every ray of knowledge — yon may 
prevent the knowledge of letters — you may withhold the book of 
God, and every other printed book — but yon can no more shut out 
a knowledge of the fundamental propositions of human rights, by 
laws — you can no more shut out the spirit of liberty, than you can, 
by law, cause the sun not tO'Shine, or the rain not to fall. The 
masters, in all their movements, their celebrations, their elections, 
their orations and conversations, on all occasions — are living and 
breathing sermons lo the slaves, on the value of liberty. Does a 
tyrant, as for example the autocrat of all the Russias, who wishes 
to keep all his subjects quiet, harangue, m their hearing, on the 
value of his own liberty to do as he pleases — <loes he contemn those 
who have the meanness to submit to his despotism ? Or, does he 

6 



42 

speak of his love for his people, as having induced him to take this 
course or that? — and attribute all his actions to an ardent devotion 
to the public weal? Manifestly, the latter. Why, you might as 
well think of keeping*powder for ever amidst the sparks in a black- 
smith's shop, as of keeping slaves forever in such a republic as ours. 
It is said, and with evident truth — educate the slaves, and they are 
free. The slave-holding legislatures, aware of this, and alarmed at 
some feeble individual attempts to communicate knowledge to the 
slaves, as if the universal prejudice and despotic power of the indi- 
vidual masters were not sufficient to repress the evil, have enacted 

LAWS AGAINST TEACHING THE SLAVES TO READ. This is a mOSt 

capital blunder. It gives ominous pledge, that such tyranny as 
theirs is soon to be swept from the face of the earth. Had they 
let the matter alone, or had they made laws in favor of educating 
slaves, about as operative as the school laws of some of the states, 
the effectual degree of ignorance might have been secured. But 
they have, in effect, taught the slaves, in language which they can 
understand, what letters are good for — what printed books can do 
for men. And there will now be a desire to learn letters, and to 
read printed books, which the inquisitorial power and skill of all the 
popes could not repress. It might as well be expected to keep the 
ocean from wetting its shores, as to keep the floods of printed books 
from reaching the slave population. 

There is another very striking point of view in which these move- 
ments may be regarded. So long as the slaves are left entirely to 
the control of individual masters, some kind and lenient, freeing now 
and then a slave, and promising fr^dom to others, and exercising a 
sort of patriarchal authority, while others are, each in his own way, 
more harsh and severe, the unity of the slaves, as a body, is broken. 
They have no common cause. Every conspiracy will be detected 
early, by means of those who, being kindly treated, have a blind 
attachment to their masters. But these legislative enactments are a 
common oppression. They form the slaves into a single body, give 
them a common interest, and break the claim of individual kind- 
ness, as well as attach, in the view of the slaves, an immeasurable 
importance to a knowledge of letters. Go on, then, tyrants — con- 
nect into one mine the explosive materials beneath you — dry the 
powder — increase the pressure — lay trains of the best fulminating 
mixtures, and wait for the spark, or the blow that is to annihilate 
you. Already have your abused, outraged vassals such motives to 
rid themselves of your yoke, that your knees smite together in spite 
of the boasted stoutness of your hearts. Go on, then, refuse to 
emancipate, add insult to injury — add stings to desperation — make 
death easier than bondage— for, in so doing, you assuredly hasten 
the day, when the American bill of rights shall mean what it 
says. 

But if , you recod at the prospect — if sanity has not yet bid adieu 
to your heads, and the milk of human kindness is not quite dried up 
from your breasts — look at the other side, Immediate emancipation 



43 

would reverse the picture. It would place a motive to love you m 
tlie room of every one which now urges the slaves to hate you. 
They would then become, for you well know how grateful they are 
for even the slightest favors, your defenders instead of your mur- 
derers. The law which now represses their crimes, would then 
more effectualy secure their good behavior, not being counteracted 
by the exasperating influence of individual irresponsible oppression. 
Your fields which now lie sterile, or produxe but half a crop, because 
the whip of the driver, although it may secure its motion, cannot 
give force to the negro's hoe, would then smile beneath the plough 
of the freeman — the genial influence of just and equitable wages. 
Mark, that I say nothing of the amount of human happiness which 
might be reared by Christian instruction on this ground of justice, 
mercy and ertiial rights applied to 2,000,000 of men. Your own estates 
would be worth double the cash. The capital which you have ex- 
pended in slaves — scarcely less than the value of your land — is sunk ; 
for your slave labor after all costs more than free. And, besides, the 
waste arising from involuntary labor is prodigious. Make all labor 
free, and the purchaser can afford to, pay for your land what he must 
now pay for the land and slaves together. Even in a pecuniary 
point of view the change from the slave to the free labor system 
would be profitable, and that upon your own comparison. * 

Do you say these are idle speculations of men who know nothing 
of facts — the dreams of visionary enthusiasts? Do you say the 
remedy would be worse than the disease ? — that violence, rapine, 
murder — nay, universal massacre, would be the consequence of uni- 
versal, immediate emancipation ? Gentlemen, you mistake ws much 
and our argument more. We are matter-of-fact people, and on the 
ground of well attested, unmagnified, undistorted facts, we defy 
jou. Show us the stain of a single drop of any master's blood shed 
by an emancipated slave ! Why silent ? Why dumb ? Why no 
motion of the finger 1 — Do you at length venture to point us to St. 
Domingo 1 It is too late. We have a better edition of the history 
of St. Domingo than j-ours, and one which you dare not impugn. 
The blood of the whites shed in St. Domingo was due either to the 
civil wars which preceded the act of emancipation, or to the un- 
righteous attempt of the French to reduce the negros to slavery 
after they had quietly enjoyed their liberty for several years. 
Not one drop of it was shed by that act which in a moment made 
500,000 freemen of as many slaves. Nay, it is testified by French 
proprietors themselves, that the negros, without a known exception, 
went directly to work for their former masters, on wages — and even 
without wages or overseers they quietly cultivated those plantations 
which had been deserted by the whites. St; Domingo is a blazing 
beacon in favor of instant abolition, and against that monstrous in- 
fatuation and fiendish cruelty, which would attempt to repress the 
upward tendencies of the human soul by brute force. 

* See the " West India Clucstion, by C. Stuart," where this subject is admi- 
rably discussed and for ever settled. 



44 

In the French colonies of Guadaloupe and Cayenne, the slaves 
were liberated at once and with the same safety. Mexico made her 
slaves free at a blow — but with the galling drawback that the mas- 
ters should be remunerated for their loss ! ! and yet we have heard 
of no evil consequences. 

Large bodies of slaves were einancipated at once, in Colombia, 
during the revolution — no blood was shed but that of the enemies of 
the republic. There are 600,000 enfranchised Africans in Brazil, 
diffused throughout the body politic, enjoying its honors as well as 
doing its labors — who are respected and happy — no blood shed. In 
the colonies of Sierra Leone and Liberia, it is notorious that con- 
siderable bodies of emancipated slaves have been incorporated into 
regular governments — and under very unfavorable circumstances. 

I might fill a volume with instances, but I repeat it, we are not 
only matter-of-fact people, but we enjoy a complete monopoly of 
facts ; that is to say, of all past facts, for of the future we say no- 
thing any more positively than we would predict the sun's rising to- 
morrow. We would speak modestly here, and say, that inasmuch 
as the sun always has risen once in twenty-four hours, the probability 
i«, to our minds, that he will rise again to-morrow. Those may doubt 
our prediction who please. Just this and nothing more we would 
say in favor of immediate, unprepared-for emancipation. We knov) 
it always has been safe, and we confidently expect it will always be 
so. If such emancipations as I have referred to, in most or all of 
which justice was hampered and partial, were safe and happy, 1 
beg to be told whether a complete and magnanimous act of justice 
on the part of our country, by which the slaves should be placed 
under the equitable government and firm protection of law, and by 
which the balm of our disabused bill of rights, should be applied to 
their lacerated feelings, would result in ruthless violence and butch- 
ery ! He who can be persuaded of any such thing — nay, he who 
can fancy it, must be something else than a natural fool — he must 
have been stultified by inoculation. 

Holders of stolen men ! do you still point us to the degraded free 
blacks of the South, and say they are more miserable than the 
slaves ? We deny the assertion. We appeal to yourselves whether 
there be any suffering even unto death which you would not endure 
rather than be slaves — rather than to he fed and fattened slaves — 
rather than to wear a single link of the slave's chain — rather than 
to submit to slavery even in the abstract principle, apart from all 
matters of reality. But granting the assertion to express a fact. 
You are not the men to plead it. You have made this fact with 
your own blood-stained hands — made it for the very purpose of dis- 
paraging the slave's freedom in the view of the slave, and the view 
of the world ! This shall be proved from your own lips. J. A. 
M'Kinney, Esq., says, " Let them [the free blacks] be maltreated ever 
so much, the law gives them no redress unless some white person 
happens to be present to be a witness in the case. If they acquire 



45 

uvfoperty, they hold it by courtesy of every vap:abond in the coun- 
try; and sooner or later are sure to have it filched from them. * 

But what if it were true, that the free black at the South is more 
miserable than the slave? It would be no argument against that 
sort of emancipation for which we plead. We plead for no turning 
loose, no exile, no kicking out of house and home, but for complete and 
hearty justice. Justice requires that the masters who have shut 
out the light of knowledge from their slaves, should now freely com- 
municate it; that they should follow up their acts of emancipation 
by giving employmcmt and affording the means of education. A 
wise and vigorous system of free labor and of primary instruction, 
should be immediately erected on the dark pile of oppression, which 
we urge them instantly to demolish. Nothing like this has been 
done heretofore, either at the South or the North, on any extensive 
and liberal scale. Ts it a wonder then, that these poor enslaved men, 
when thus turned adrift, have in so many instances missed the path 
of moral and mental improvement? Is it not rather marvellous that 
they have not sunk, as a class, deeper in vice than we find them ? 
We hold the masters bound, individually and in the aggregate, first 
to LIBERATE and then to enlighten the immortal minds that 
have been abused and debased by their avarice and lust ! Justice 
hitherto has been clogged, defaced, mutilated ; but the day of her 
power rolls on. — Her sun is above the horizon ! 

Shame on you, proprietors of men ! Do not add to your inhuman 
cruelty the useless hj'-pocrisy of professing to wish the free blacks 
away for their own good ! Say, in plain English, for we cannot be 
much longer deceived, that your sole object is to rid yourselves of 
colored freedom, lest your slaves should be provoked to think them- 
selves men, and discover that they too have rights. Shame on you 
loo, benevolent colonizers ! Do not add to your unchristian prejudice 
the gratuitous sycophancy of doing their foulest deeds lor men- 
stealers ! Say in plain English, for it will be believed whether you 
say it or not, that you succumb to arrogance, and are recreants to 
the Master in whose rrame you have been baptized ! 

If, after reading these thoughts, any candid mind should feel a 
lingering doubt whether emancipation, instant and unconditional, be 
safe, I beg such a mind to hold its decision in suspense till further 
facts, which have been unaccountably shut out from the public eye, 
are brought forward, which, I trust, will be at no distant day. 

2. The firm expression of an enlightened public opinion on, the 
part of non-slave-holders, in favor of instant abolition, is an effectual, 
and the only effectual means of securing abolition in any time what- 
soever. 

Many men, very wise men in their own estimj(,tion, dismiss aboli- 
tion as a " wild" project, a " theory," a mere closet theory. Coloni- 

* See his speech in the African Repository. See also Mr. Brodnax's speeches 
before the Virginia legislature, and Mr. Archer's speech before the American Co- 
lonization Society. 



46 

z.ition is a praclical business — therefore they ore for colonizatioti. 
But is speaking //-////^ a theory ? Is calHng things by their right 
names a closet theory ? How passing strange that one of our state 
legislatures should otfer $5,000 for the abduction of a mere theorist ! 
For my own part, I had supposed that such large pecuniary trans- 
actions involved practical business. I had supposed that this reward 
mi^ht be viewed in the light of a steam-gage, which indicates the 
efficiency of the moving force. I had supposed it might be a ne- 
cessary and practical part of the business of reclaiming wicked men, 
to say something which they would not choose to have us. 

If "northern men, as a body, would become abolitionists, and if 
they will not, what security have we that they will not become 
slave-holders? If they would speak out as abolitionists, would the 
people of the South regard it as a mere unpractical ilieory ? May 
it not be that they now hold their slaves by virtue of our theory 
against immediate emancipatio?i, expressed a thousand times through 
the Colonization Society and in other ways ? If we, that is to say, 
all our wise and prudent men, have justified slavery, why should they 
condemn it? But if the cry, c//.m tacent, clamant, of 2,000,000 of 
oppressed men should enter our ears ; if all our philanthropic men 
and women should be moved from the bottom of their hearts, and 
pour out the deep current of their united sympathy for the slave ; 
and if the cautious and the timid, and the immovably prudent, 
should be, as they always are, borne along with the tide, might it 
not have a very practical bearing on the common sense and con- 
science of the southern people? How do we know that there are 
not hundreds and thousands among them, who. need only to be backed 
by northern sentiment to become martyrs in the cause of humanity? 
Are we to be told that the most benevolent men at the South depre- 
cate any such interference on our part ? Let us have the proof that- 
they are benevolent men. We cannot take their word for it, nor 
any man's word for it, till it is shown that those men are not slave- 
holders, and that they have no sympathy with slave-holders as such ; 
otherwise, we are merely told of benevolent robbers, — a thing in- 
credible, especially on the testimony of the robbers themselves. But, 
waiving this point, it is said they are on the ground, and know bet- 
ter than we what ought to be done, and how it ought to be done. 
" Why should men who have never set foot south of the Potomac or 
Ohio, pretend to know more about slavery and its remedy, than 
those who have been born and bred in the midst of it ? Insuffera- 
ble presumption !" This reminds me of a certain person— a mi- 
7iister of the gospel, reader— in this vicinity, who, on being asked to 
subscribe for an abolition newspaper, said he had not yet read enough 
on the subject to know whether a man could have a right of pro- 
perty in man or not ! accordingly, he very sagely concluded not to 
take the newspaper till he had investigated the matter more tho- 
rouo-hly,— probably, to see whether or not it was worthy of mvesti- 
gatfon! Should such a man visit the South, and see with his own 
eyes, he would doubtless be well satisfied that man can have pro- 



47 

perty in man. What is a man's honesty good for, if he needs W 
make a pilgrimage to Georgia to learn whether stolen property 
ought to be given up? 

Others exclaim, " But how can your scheme of immediate, instant 
abolition be practicable? Can a handful of northern men, or even 
the combined North, expect to overturn southern society from its 
foundation in a vioment ?—\n the twinkli?ig of an eye ? What fools ! 
Forsooth you will do nothing against slavery, unless you can do 
every tiling, all at once ! Heaven deliver us from such Quixotism ! 
We are for the gradual abolition, for not attempting more than we 
can effect." W^hat a pity that the great body of evangelical preach- 
ers of the gospel cannot learn wisdom of such counsellors. They 
preach immediate, entire repentance; of course they exiuci, "what 
fools!" to convert the whole world at a blow! Why do Me?/ not 
confine themselves to the doctrine of gradual repentance, and not 
attempt more than they are able to effect ? 

Now if 1 may be allowed to make a distinction too elementary to 
be overlooked by an infant, a doctrine is one thing, and a plan is 
another. When we say that slave-holders ought all to emancipate 
their slaves immediately, we state a doctrine which is true. We do 
not propose a flan. Our flan, and it has been explained often 
enough not to be misunderstood, is simply this : To promulgate the 
true doctrine of human rights in high places and low places, and all 
places where there are human beings. To whisper it in chimney 
corners and to proclaim it from the house-tops — yea from the mouiv 
tain-tops, To pour il out like water from the pulpit and the press. 
To mix it up with all the food of the inner man, from infancy to 
gray hairs, — to give "line upon line and precept upon precept," till 
it forms one of the foundation principles and parts indestructible of 
the public soul. Let those who contemn this plan, renounce, if they 
have not done it already, the gospel plan for converting the world ; 
let them renounce every plan of moral reformation, and every plan 
whatsoever, which does not terminate in the gratification of their 
own animal natures. 

By prosecuting the plan described, we expect to see the benevo- 
lent, one by one at first, and afterwards in dense masses, awaking, 
gathering up their armor and rushing to the standard with the reso- 
lution to make up for lost time ; we expect to see, at length, the full 
tide of public sympathy setting in favor of the slave. We expect 
to see him, when escaped from his cruel servitude, greeted by the 
friends of liberty, at the North, equally with the more courtly re- 
fugee of European tyranny. We expect to see the free colored 
American so educated and elevated in our own land, that it shall be 
notorious that the slave is brother to a man f In the meantime 
we expect to see the great body of slave-holders exasperated, foam- 
ing with rage and gnashing their teeth, threatening loudly to secede 
from the Union ! ! madly prating about the invasion of sacred 
rights, the disturbance of their domestic quiet, and the violation of 
solemn compacts ; and with blind infatuation, riveting tighter the 



48 

fetters of their helpless victims. Nevertheless, w^e expect to sec 
some tyrants, conscience stricken, loosen their grasp; we expect, 
with God's good help, to hear the trumpet of the world's jubilee 
announcing that the last fetter has been knocked off from the heel 
of the last slave. 

Thus I have endeavored to develop the nature of the evil to be 
remedied, and have held up, side by side, the remedies proposed. The 
reader is called upon to judge between them. It is a question in 
which he cannot fail to be interested till he ceases to be a man. The 
remedies are fundamentally opposite. The one is physical, and 
aims, contrary to nature, to withdraw 2,500,000 laborers from a 
fruitful soil and a healthful climate, and plant them under a tropical 
sun, in a soil trampled and spoiled by civilized rapacity and still the 
resort of robbers, and all for the sake of avoiding the just vengeance 
of Heaven, without giving up that wicked prejudice which lies at 
the bottom of the sin. The other is moral ; * it addresses — not the 
slave, but the master] it seeks not to abolish slavery by a forced le- 
gislation, but to correct that public opinion on which law in a free 
country is based ; it applies to the subject the principles of the Bible, 
in the spirit of the Bible ; it holds no compromis^e with the open viola- 
tors of God's law. Let public opinion be corrected and the requisite 
legislation will be easily applied, and a complete substitution of free 
for slave labor, without a removal of the laborers will be the conse- 
quence. Till that time let every slave-holder who becomes convinced of 
his sin act upon the principles of justice. No law can justly compel 
him to regard his fellow men as property — to buy and sell them. 
Let him say then to his slaves that they are slaves no longer, that he 
will treat them as free, and protect them in his employ as free labor- 
ers, to the extent of his ability. If the law interferes, on others the 
responsibility will rest. But the friends of free labor at the South, 
for they are certainly numerous, might combine on the plan of a 
mutual pledge, like the temperance pledge, to abstain from treatmg 
their fellow men as property, to advocate their indefeasible claim to 
liberty under law, and to open to them the field of knowledge. This 
must be done, or human nature must be left to right itself by phy- 
sical FORCE. Slavery cannot exist forever. If the slaves were all 
free to-day, it would be as vain to expect that they could be rooted 
up from the soil with their own consent — without an act of direct 
oppression — as it would be to expect the fish to betake themselves 
to the mountains. But unless the emigration is altogether free, a 
God of justice will not aid us. If we would have his favor, we must 
go for immediate emancipation upon the soil. 

After all, many well-meaning people cannot, for their lives, see 
why emancipationists and colonizationists should not go together. 
This is merely because they do not see things as they are. 1 must 
be allowed to tell them a story, 

♦ See Appendix D. 



THE TWO DOGS. 
A Fable. 

A shepherd, whose flock was infested nightly by a wolf, pro- 
cured a spaniel to defend it. This dog, who seemed remarkably 
aflectionate and obedient in presence of his master, was of little 
service to the poor sheep ; for, tliough he barked furiously vvhile 
the wolf was in the inclosure making his insidious attack, he no 
sooner saw him fairly otl" with the prey, than he ran to him and 
fawned upon him, and even at length received and devoured small 
bits of the torn flesh, and, to save appearances with his master, 
brought back in his moutli some of the pieces which the wolf had 
thrown away, and laid them down in the inclosure. 

Grieved to see his flock still molested, the shepherd procured a 
niastifl' — a dog of much liercer countenance, and of unflinching 
mettle. His first growl agitated the wolf exceedingly, whereupon 
that old robber oflered a large reward out of his plunder to any one 
who would bring the mastiff bound to his den. The spaniel, hear- 
ing of this, lamented the imprudence of the mastifl", and expressed 
his regret that any thing should be done to exasperate so fero- 
cious an enemy as the wolf. The mastifl', however, was not to be 
intimidated. Expressing the sturdiest indignation, both against 
the wolf and his pusillanimous apologist, he set out to attack the 
robber in his den. At this moment the spaniel, seeing the reso- 
lute countenance and lofty bearing of his fellow, whined in a very 
soothing tone, why can we not go together ? BECAUSE, growled 
the mastifl", you have been for a dog^s age the protector of this 
flock, and have never had a price set upon your head ! 



FINIS. 



ATPENDIX. 



(A.) See page 22. 
Extract from the speech of the Hon. Mr. Archer, of Virginia, at the fifteenth 
annual meeting of the American Colonization Society. (" Bound up with" the 
Fifteenth Annual Report!) 

" Mr. Arclier said, that he was not one of those, (however dcsirahle it miaht he and 
was, in abstract speculation,) who looked tn the complete removal of slavery from 
among us. If that "consummation, devoutly to be wished," were to be considered 
feasible at all, it was at a period too remote to warrant the expenditure of any re- 
source of contemplation or contribution now. But a great benefit, short of "this, 
was within reach, and made [)art of the scope of operation, of the plan of the So- 
ciety. The progress of slavery was subjected to the action of a law, of the ut- 
most regularity of action. Where this progress was neither stayed, nor modified 
by causes of collateral operation, it hastened, with a frightful rapidity, disproportion- 
ed, entirely, to the ordinary law of the advancen:ent of population, to its catastrophe, 
which was repletion. If none were drained away, slaves became, except under pe- 
culiar circumstances of climate and production, inevitably and speedily redundant, 
first to the occasions of jirofitable employment, and as a consequence, to the faculty 
of comfortable provision for them. No matter what the humanity of the owners, 
fixed restriction on their resources must transfer itself to the comfort, and then the 
subsistence, of the slave. At this last stage, the evil m this form had to stop. To 
this stage (from the disproportioned rate of nmltiplication of the slaves — double that 
of the owners in this country) it was obliged, though at ditierent periods, in ditler- 
cnt circumstances, to come. When this istiige had been reached, what course or 
remedy remained 1 Was open butchery to be resorted to, as among the Spartans 
with the Helots 1 Or general emancipation, and incorporation, as in South Ameri- 
ca 1 Or abandonment of the country by the masters, as must come to be the case 
in the West Indies 1 E.ithcr of these was a deplorable catastrophe. Could all of 
them be avoided, and if they could, how 1 There was but one way, hut that might 
be made eti'ectual, tortunately ! It was to frovide and keep opeti a drain for the 
excess of increase beyond the occasions of projllable empluynicnt. 'I'his might be 
done efl'ectually by extension of the plan ol' tiie Society . 'I'he drain was already 
opened. All that was necessary would be, to provide lor the enlargement of the 
channel, as occasion might demand." 

(B.) See page 28. 

At the last meeting of the American Colonization Society, on motion of the Hon. 
Mr. Chambers, it was 

Resolved, Tiiat the Society view, ivitli tlie liii;liPPt prruificntion, tlie continued efforts of the 
Plate of Marylaiiil to acconiiilisii iicr (j:i(r!ouc tii;il lj«i;t\oii nt squill iii itfiaiil tr, lior colored po- 
pulation, and that tlie late apiiropriHtloii by that Htate, of two liundied tliousaiul dollars in Hid of 
Alricaii colonizalion, i.s hailed !iy llie I'riends of tlie sysltui, as a hriglit cviunple to other states. 

In support of this resolution, Mr. C, among other things, said, 

" Sir, 1 reside in a slave State, alive to all the jealousies which a consideration of 
this kind must excite. No other State would "be more sensitive at the slightest 
ellbrt to withdraw from its own jieculiar cognizance, the exchi.sive and entire con- 
trol of all questions toucliing this species of property ; none will go farther to sus- 
tain her right to such exclusive jurisdiction ; and no citizen of the State would vin- 
dicate that claim with more untiring zeal and firmness, than the individual now 
before you. But, sir, the apprehension is groundless — your Constitution avows, 
and your whole history proves that no such ])urpose exists. This Society interferea 
with" the rights and interests of no one. Who has ever claimed for the Society or 
for tU« National Government, opcratins through its agency, tho rijiht to interfere 



51 

with, or control State legislation on the sulijoct of slavery t There may be individu- 
als in llii.s Society, as there are out of it, who intempcrately urge the subject of 
emancipation, and would desire to see it advance quite beyond the limits of pru- 
dence and safety. Such enthusiasts may be witling to make any Institution, So- 
ciety, or Government, auxiliary to their wild and mischievous projects ; but the 
Colonization Society, is not responsible for these intemperate fanatics : nor docs it 
countenance or encourage thtir schemes: — It interferes in no way with the rights or 
the interests of owners of slaves. That in the prosecution of its legitimate opera- 
tions, and by aflbrding the prospect of comfort and respectability to the man of 
color, it may exert an influence altogether of a moral nature favorable to eman- 
cipation, with a view to colonization, may be admitted. It imposes no restraints, 
makes no demands, assails no man's rights, nor seeks to invade the volition which 
he indulges, or to disturb the enjoyment of what the laws secure to him. Its sole 
and single object is the colonization of the free, and with their full consent." 

It will be plainly seen by the following extract from the Maryland Act, how the 
" full consent" of the "free" colored people is to be obtained. The most " benevo- 
lent" thing in the law appears to be this: it gives the slave the alternative of re- 
maining in bondage if he does not consent to be an exile from his native land ! 

" or in case the said •person or persons shall refuse to be so removed, 

then it shall be the duty of the said board of managers to remove the said person or 
persons to such other place or places beyond the limits of this State, as the said 
Board shall approve of, and the said person or persons shall be willing to go to, and 
to provide for their reception and support at such place or places as the said board 
may tliink necessary, until they shall be able to provide for themselves out of any 
money that may be earned by their hire, or niay be otherwise provided for that 
purpose, and in case the said person or persons shall refuse to be removed to any 
place beyond the limits of tliis State, and shidl persist in remaining therein, then 
it shall be the duty of the said board to inform the sheriff of the county wherein 
such person or persons may be, of such refusal, and it shall thereupon be the duty of 
the said sheriff forthwith to arrest or cause to be arrested the said person or persons 
so refusing to emigrate from this State, and transport the said person or persons 
beyond the limits of this State ; and all slaves shall be capable of receiving manu- 
mission, (br the purpose of removal as aforesaid, with their consent, of whatever 
age, any law to the contrary notwithstanding." 

(C.) See page 45. 
The following extract from the speech of Mr. Archer, before referred to, reveals 
the reason why the free blacks at the South are " worse off" than the slaves. It 
seems that those who have heretofore emancipated, have neglected to employ and 
educate ; they have " turned loose ;" they have thrown the emancipated, while 
liberty was in the bud, directly beneath the influence of that system which blasts 
like the Upas ! It is not the air and sunshine of liberty which has done this mischief 
to the freedman, but the poison tree, which must be torn out by the roots ! 

But where were the free blacks to find occupation in the slave-holding States, 
in which they abounded the most 1 in the other States, they might be ab- 
sorbed to some extent, in ilomestic or mechanical service. This could"take place 
to no extent, that deserved to be named, in the slave-holding States. There all 
the avenues of occupation were filled. Even were there space, a necessary and 

OBVIOUS POLICY RESTRAINED THE INTERMIXTURE OF THE SEVERAL CASTS IN OC- 
CUPATION. The free blacks were, therefore, destined, by an insurmountable barri- 
er— a_^.red pale of social law to the want of occupation— thence to the want of 
food — thence to the distresses which ensue that want — thence to the settled depra- 
vation vvhich grows out of these distresses, and is nursed at their bosoms : and this 
condition was not casualty, but fate. The evidence was not speculation in political 
economy — it was geometrical demonstration. 






53 



(D.) See page 45. 

It is cried that abolition is a party question — that it belongs to polilica, not t« re- 
ligion. 1 cannot better reply to this, than by quoting a passage from the London 
Christian Observer, directed against the same cry in England. 

" But be [the Quarterly Reviewer] is averse to their system of diffusing a know- 
ledge of thp real nature of slavery through the land; nay, ' he decidedly reprobates 
it.' And why docs he reprobate it 1 The reason is curious : ' We do not object,' he 
says, ' in the slightest dtgrce, to a deep rooted hatred of slavery, or a tliorough 
knowledge on that or any other .subject.' This is precisely the preface to be ex- 
pected when a man is about to defend slavery, or to plead against diffusing a know- 
lege of it. He, therefore, proceeds — 'But we protest against this thorough know- 
ledge, or deep rooted hatred, being confounded with religious feeling, or employed 
for PARTY ruRPOSEs.' There is really something ludicrous in this sort of protest. 
Does the Reviewer mean that we are not to decide the question of slavery on reli- 
gious trrounds'] That in this case alone we are not to try our conduct by thi: im- 
mutable princi[)les of right and wrong, which are laid down in the word of Godl 
That in this case alone we are not to nppeal to the Christian maxim of doing to 
others as we would that they should do unto us]' That here alone we are not to 
bring into operation that divine charily, which seeks to relieve our fellow creatures 
from tem|ioral misery and oppression, from mental degradation, and from spiritual 
death 1 And what, again, does he mean by party purposes? Is it that the energies 
which are enlisted in favor of the freedom and happiness of miuikiml, in fivor of 
the oppressed against his oppressor, are to be likened to a scramble for place, or 
some paltry question of party pohlics 1 * * * * Party politics ! Yes, the purposes 
of truth, and justice, and humanity — the promotion of the universal freedom of 
man — the cause of morality and religion — the cause of their country — the cause of 
God! May the people of England, young and old, be ever found devoted to such 
purposes ! the zealous, unswerving, unshrinking partizans of sHch a cause !" 
^ ^ , [Voh 24, p. 576. 

An extract from the address of Bolivar to the legislature of Peru, or Bolivia, on 
the formation of their constitution in 1826. 

" I have Ictt untouched that law of laws — equality, without which all other gua- 
rantees perish, as well as all other rights. To her we are bound to make sacriiices. 
1 have laid prostrate at her fret the infamous state of slavery. 

" Legislators! — slavery is the infringement of all laws. A law having a tenden- 
cy to preserve slavery, would be the grossest sacrilege. What right can be alleged 
in favor of its coniinuancel In whatever view this crime is considered, 1 am per- 
suaded that there is not a single Bolivian in existence so depraved, as to pretend 
that such a signal violation of the dignity of man can be legalized. Man to be pos- 
sessed by hi.3 fellow man — man to be made property of! The image of the Deity to 
be put under the yoke ! Let these usurpurs show us their title deeds ! The coast of 
Guinea has not sent them to us; for Africa, devastated by fratricide, exhibits 
nought but crimes. After these relics of African tribes are transported hither, 
what law or power can sanction a dominion over these victims'? The act of trans- 
mitting, proroguing, and perpetrating this crime, with its admixture of executions, 
forms the most shocking outrage. A principle of possession, founded on the most 
serious delinquency, could not be conceived without overturning and upsetting all 
the elements of right, and without a perversion of the most absolute notions of duty." 

Have Protestant Christians of North America no blush ? 



CORRIGENDA. 

Page 10, line 10, for hou-ic read home. 
" " line 29, for arc few read are a few. 
" 17, lino 17, for clink read clank. 
" 23, from Uie bottom, line 10, after niffhl-born insert irtnocenit. 



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